Secondly, I referred earlier to the work of the seventh ray in connection with the phenomena of electricity, through which the solar system is coordinated and vitalized. There is an aspect of electrical phenomena which produces cohesion, just as there is an aspect which produces light. This has not yet been recognized. It is stated in The Secret Doctrine of H.P.B., and in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, that the electricity of the solar system is threefold: there is fire by friction, solar fire, and electric fire, - the fire of body, of soul and of spirit. Fire by friction is coming to be somewhat understood by the scientists of the world, and we are harnessing to our needs the fire which heats, which gives light, and which produces motion. This is in the physical sense of the words. One of [374] the imminent discoveries will be the integrating power of electricity as it produces the cohesion within all forms and sustains all form life during the cycle of manifested existence. It produces also the coming together of atoms and of the organisms within forms, so constructing that which is needed to express the life principle. Men today are investigating such matters as electro-therapeutics and studying the theory of the electrical nature of the human being. They are working rapidly towards this coming discovery, and much will be revealed along these lines during the next fifty years. The principle of coordination about which men talk has reference, in the last analysis, to this concept, and the scientific basis of all meditation work is really to be found in this basic truth. The bringing in of force and the offering of a channel are all mystical ways of expressing a natural phenomenon as yet little understood, but which will eventually give the clue to the second aspect of electricity. This will be released in fuller measure during the Aquarian age, through the agency of the seventh ray. One of its earliest effects will be the increase of the understanding of brotherhood and its really scientific basis.

I referred to the fact that man must before long function as freely on the astral plane and through the astral consciousness as he now does on the physical plane. We are today laying the emphasis upon the vital aspect of man; the nature of the life principle is under discussion, and the need for "vital" action everywhere emphasized. We talk of the necessity of increasing human vitality and the vitality of animals and plants; the quality of the vitality producing factors - food, sun and the colored rays so widely used now - is creeping slowly into all medical thought, whilst even the advertisers of the tinned goods of our modern civilization lay the emphasis upon the quota of vitamins. This, esoterically [375] speaking, is due to the shift of human consciousness on to etheric levels. Paralleling the growth of modern knowledge as to the "soul as intellect", we find a growth of understanding as to "the soul as life", though it remains as yet the great and apparently insoluble mystery.

There are two happenings of close and imminent occurrence. Today the bulk of human beings are polarized on the lower levels of the astral plane, but are conscious in the physical body. This distinction must be studied. Soon, many will be conscious in the vital body and beginning to be conscious on the higher levels of the astral plane, and some few upon the mental plane. But large numbers of people today are ready to be fully conscious in the astral body and polarized either on the mental plane entirely or centered in the soul. This produces the wonder and the difficulty of the present time.

Through the scientific ritual of meditation (for that is what it really is) this refocusing can be brought more rapidly about. Through the scientific culture of the ritual of service it can be still further developed. The ritual of the solar system is the result of the meditation of God and the act of divine service, carried on throughout the entire period of manifestation. The subordination of the lower life to the ritual of service is literally the tuning-in of the individual to the rhythm of the life, heart and mind of God Himself. From that tuning-in, automatically a spiritual development follows.