I would remind you that there is an analogy in the relation between personality and soul, to that between the Triad and the Monad. This is an analogy that is essentially complete, from the standpoint of consciousness, but not from the standpoint of form. What finally takes place at the most advanced stage of development is the complete fusion of the unified personality and soul with the unified Monad and Spiritual Triad. Only when this has been truly [498] accomplished is there the complete release of the Lives informing our solar system from all form control. Bear this carefully in mind, realizing the significance of the word Service, used so frequently in the occult science, and realizing also the fact that, for aspirants and disciples, the immediate task ahead is:

1. To bring about the at-one-ment of soul and body, through the medium of alignment.
2. To build the antahkarana, using the six modes or means outlined by me previously, and thus evoke response to the Triad. The thought of Alignment-Invocation- Evocation are the three major ideas for you to hold in mind as we proceed with this study.

The reason that I am giving out what was earlier regarded as some of the preparatory work prior to the third initiation is due to the fact that the race is now at the point of development which warrants complete change in the approach to divinity as taught by the Hierarchy. This does not mean that past teaching is abrogated, but it is shifted back to the earlier stages on the Path of Discipleship, whilst the teaching given in those stages now becomes the work done by the aspirants upon the Probationary Path. Emphasis has been laid upon purification, upon the need for the development of the Christ life, upon the mystical vision and upon philosophy. Occult truths have been given to the race and have evoked much interest, criticism and discussion; they have appealed to all types of mind; they have been distorted and misapplied. Nevertheless, they have been instrumental in aiding advanced aspirants to move forward on to the Path of Discipleship, with a paralleling moving forward of accepted disciples. Once firmly established upon the Path, the truths become self-evident and individual application and verification can be made, leading the disciple inevitably to the Portal of Initiation.

The race as a whole stands now at the very entrance to the Path of Discipleship. The racial gaze is forward to the vision, whether it is the vision of the soul, a vision of a better way of life, of an improved economic situation, or of [499] better interracial relationship. That this vision is oft distorted, that it is materially oriented or only partially seen is sadly true; but in some form or another there exists today an appreciable grasp of the "new and desirable" by the masses - a thing hitherto unknown. In the past, it was the intelligentsia or the elect who were privileged to have the vision. Today, it is the mass of men. Humanity, therefore, as a whole stands ready for a general alignment process, and that is the spiritual reason which lay behind the world war. The "sharp shears of sorrow must separate the real from the unreal; the lash of pain must awaken the sleepy soul to exquisite life; the wrenching away of the roots of life from the soil of selfish desire must be undergone, and then the man stands free." So runs the Old Commentary in one of its more mystical stanzas. Thus it points prophetically to the close of the Aryan Race - not a close in the sense of completion, but a closing of a cycle of mental perfecting, preparatory to a cycle wherein the mind will be rightly used as an instrument of alignment, then as the searchlight of the soul, and as the controller of the personality.