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Esoteric Psychology II - Chapter II - The Ray of Personality - The Coordination of the Personality
Ray Six " 'I see a vision. It satisfies desire; it feeds and stimulates its growth. I lay my life upon the altar of desire - the seen, the sensed, that which appeals to me, the satisfaction of [372] my need - a need for that which is material, for that which feeds emotion, that satisfies the mind, that answers my demand for truth, for service, and my vision of the goal. It is the vision which I see, the dream I dream, the truth I hold, the active form which meets my need, that which I grasp and understand. My truth, my peace, my satisfied desire, my dream, my vision of reality, my limited ideal, my finite thought of God; - for these I struggle, fight and die.' Love of the truth must always be. Desire and aspiration, reaching out for that which is material or soaring upward towards the vision of reality must ever find their satisfaction. For this men work, driving themselves and irking others. They love the truth as they interpret it; they love the vision and the dream, forgetting that the truth is limited by mind - narrow and set, one-pointed, not inclusive; forgetting that the vision touches but the outer fringe of mystery, and veils and hides reality. The word goes out from soul to form: 'Run not so straight. The path that you are on leads to the outer circle of the life of God; the line goes forward to the outer rim. Stand at the center. Look on every side. Die not for outer forms. Forget not God, Who dwells behind the vision. Love more your fellow men.' " It will be apparent, therefore, that the sixth ray disciple has first of all to achieve the arduous task of dissociating himself from his vision, from his adored truth, from his loved ideals, from his painted picture of himself as the devoted follower and disciple, following his Master unto death, if need be; forcing himself (from very love of form) and forcing all his fellowmen to dedicate themselves to that which he sees. It must be recognized that he lacks the wide love of the second ray disciple which is a reflection of the love of God. He is all the time occupied with himself, with his work, his sacrifice, his task, his ideas, and his activities. He, the devotee, is lost in his devotion. He, the idealist, is driven by his idea. He, the follower, runs blindly after his Master, his chosen ideal and loses himself in the chaos of his uncontrolled [373] aspirations and the glamor of his own thoughts. Curiously enough, there is a close relation between the third and the sixth rays, just as there is between the first and the second rays, and the second and the fourth. The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rays have no such paralleling relations. 1 added to 1 equals 2, 2 added to 2 equals 4, 3 added to 3 equals 6. Between these pairs of rays there is a line of special energy flowing which warrants the attention of disciples who are becoming conscious of their relationships. This relation and interplay only becomes active at a relatively high stage of evolution. The problem, therefore, of the sixth ray aspirant is to divorce himself from the thralldom of form (though not from form) and to stand quietly at the center, just as the third ray disciple has to learn to do. There he learns breadth of vision and a right sense of proportion. These two qualities he always lacks until the time comes when he can take his stand and there align himself with all visions, all forms of truth, all dreams of reality, and find behind them all - God and his fellow men. Then and only then can he be trusted to work with the Plan. The alignment evoked by this "peaceful standing still" naturally produces a crisis and it is, as usual, a most difficult one for the aspirant to handle. It is a crisis which seems to leave him destitute of incentive, of motive, of sensation, of appreciation by others and of life purpose. The idea of "my truth, my master, my idea, my way" leaves him and as yet he has nothing to take its place. Being sixth ray, and therefore linked with the world of astral psychic life, the sixth plane, he is peculiarly sensitive to his own reactions and to the ideas of others where he and his truths are concerned. He feels a fool and considers that others are thinking him so. The crisis therefore is severe, for it has to produce a complete readjustment of the Self to the self. His fanaticism, his devotion, his [374] furious driving of himself and others, his wasted efforts, and his lack of understanding of the point of view of others have all gone, but as yet nothing has taken their place. He is swept by futility and his world rocks under him. Let him stand still at the center, fixing his eyes on the soul and ceasing activity for a brief period of time until the light breaks in. It is interesting here to note that the Master Jesus, as He hung upon the Cross, experienced (on a much higher turn of the spiral than is possible to the disciple) the acme and the height of this crisis, though in His case - being attuned to God and to all God's children - there swept over Him the sum total of the dilemma of the world disciples and all the agony of the astral awareness of this dilemma, voicing itself in the agonizing words: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." But by facing futility and himself and by surrendering himself to the life at the center and there holding himself poised and still, yet alert, the light will break in and reveal to the disciple that which he needs to know. He learns to express that inclusive love which is his major requirement and to let go the narrow, one-pointed attitude which he has hitherto regarded as love. He welcomes then all visions, if they serve to lift and comfort his brothers; he welcomes all truths, if they are the agents of revelation to other minds; he welcomes all dreams if they can act as incentives to his fellow men. He shares in them all, yet retains his poised position at the center. Thus we can see that the essential integration of this unit into his group can now take place. The problem of the disciple upon this ray is greatly increased by the fact that the sixth ray has been the dominant ray for so many centuries and is only now passing out. Therefore the idealistic, fanatical thought-forms, built up by [375] the devotees upon this ray, are powerful and persistent. The world today is fanatically idealistic, and this is one of the causes of the present world situation. It is hard for the man who is the one-pointed devotee to free himself from the prevailing influence, for the energy thus generated feeds that which he seeks to leave behind. If he can, however, grasp the fact that devotion, expressing itself through a personality, engenders fanaticism and that fanaticism is separative, frequently cruel, often motivated by good ideals, but that it usually overlooks the immediate reality by rushing off after a self-engendered vision of truth, he will go far along the way to solving his problem. If he can then realize that devotion, expressing itself through the soul, is love and inclusiveness plus understanding, then he will learn eventually to free himself from the idealism of others and of himself and will identify himself with that of the Hierarchy, which is the loving working out of God's Plan. It is free from hatred, from intense emphasis upon an aspect or a part, and is not limited by the sense of time.
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