BROTHER OF MINE:

You have a curious combination of rays with which to work, my brother and my friend, but a correct understanding of the five forces which control you in this incarnation should do much to enable you to make a right approach to the life work which will be yours in your next incarnation. This particular life which you are now experiencing is simply a preparatory one. In the earlier part of this life you worked definitely with what you inherited from a previous life, following the lines of least resistance. This culminated for you in certain aspects of creative work, but it was only the fulfilment of innate capacity and most definitely personality achievement, and not soul performance. Forget not, however, that personality achievement is, in its right place and time, divine achievement.

But the point for you to grasp is that this later part of your life is pronouncedly preparatory training for creative group achievement in your next life. One of the problems which we, the teachers upon the inner side, have always to face is how to lead our chelas to the recognition of the temporary and relatively unimportant nature of any one particular life. You had, up to the age of forty-three, no real group sense. You came into incarnation to gain it and found your way into group activity. This proved to you a place of soul satisfaction at times, and of conflict many times. And, my brother, you have made real progress in the evocation of group consciousness. It has been [233] peculiarly difficult in your case, owing to the two major rays which control you - the first Ray of Power, of isolation, detachment and the sense of uniqueness, and the third Ray of Intelligence, which is apt to bring with it the sense of pride of intellect. This latter you have most successfully controlled. But in this particular incarnation, every step forward in soul control must be taken through the facing of certain tests connected with your line of least resistance, and must be taken with the eyes of the mind wide open, so as to avoid the pitfalls of aloneness, and of separation. This I think you know.

Your problem is further complicated by the fact that your mental body is on the third Ray of Active Intelligence which is also your personality ray. This does two things for you: It definitely facilitates the integration of your personality, and it also enables you to contact your soul with relative ease, if you so choose. Nevertheless, it also emphasizes all the third ray faculties and capacities of your personality - critical, analytical, separate, prideful and full of self-interest - and, as you are definitely going through a process of rapid integration, this produces situations which require most careful handling and watching.

Your astral or emotional body is on the sixth Ray of Devotion. This brings in the conflicts of idealism, and constitutes for you the crux of your life problem. It enables you also to bring certain offsetting tendencies to your personality and mind rays which are most valuable.