The simplicity of this Rule nine is such that in a few words the entire process of creative evolution is summarized. On the mental plane an idea takes form. On [262] the desire plane sentient energy pervades that form. Under the evolutionary process the form "swells and grows". Through the right direction of the form and its orientation in the needed direction, the purpose of the thinker is fulfiled.

All life is vibration and the result of vibration is form, dense or subtle, and ever subtler as ascension takes place. As the pulsating life progresses its rate of vibration changes, and in this changing of vibration lies hid the secret of form-shattering and form-building. Forms are of four kinds in this era of the fourth round:

1. The Form of the Personality, that vehicle of physical, astral and mental matter that provides the means of contact in the three worlds. It is built in each life, the key of the vibration being set up in the life preceding the present. That form proves adequate for the average man and serves him till death. The man who is entering on the occult path starts with the vehicle provided, but during incarnation builds for himself ever a newer and better vehicle, and the more progressed he is the more consciously he works. Hence eventuates that constant turmoil and frequent ill-health of the beginner in the occult life. He senses the law, he realizes the need of raising his key, and frequently he begins with mistakes. He starts to build anew his physical body by diet and discipline, instead of working from the inner outward. In the careful discipline of the mind and the manipulation of thought-matter and in transmutation of emotion comes the working out on the physical plane. Add to the two above, physical plane purity as to food and manner of life, and in seven years time the man has built for himself three new bodies around the permanent atoms.

2. The Form of the Environment. This is really the evolutionary working out of the involutionary group soul. It relates to our contacts, not just exterior, but on the inner planes as well. In similarity of vibration [263] comes coherency. When therefore a man raises his vibration and builds anew from the beginning, and alters consequently his key, it results in dissonance in his surroundings and subsequent discord. Therefore - under the law - there comes always to the striver after the Mysteries and the manipulator of the law, a period of aloneness and of sorrow when no man stands by and isolation is his lot. In lesser degree this comes to all, and to the arhat (or initiate of the fourth degree) this complete isolation is a characteristic feature. He stands midway between life in the three worlds and that in the world of adepts. His vibration does not synchronize, prior to initiation, with the vibrations of either group. Under the law he is alone. But this is only temporary. When the environment satisfies then is the moment of anxiety; it indicates stagnation. The application of the law causes primary disruption.

3. The Form of the Devotee. Yes, I mean just that word, for it expresses an abstract idea. Each person of every degree has his devotion, that for which he lives, that for which - in ignorance, in knowledge or in wisdom - he wields as much of the law as he can grasp. Purely physical may that devotion be, centered in flesh, in lust for gold, in possessions concrete. He bends all his energies to the search for the satisfaction of that concrete form and thereby learns. Purely astral maybe the aim of the devotee - love of wife or child, or family, pride of race, love of popularity, or lust of some kind - to them he devotes the whole of his energy, using the physical body to fulfil the desire of the astral.