I would like to enlarge somewhat upon an earlier remark. I stated that the "seven Ashrams are 'proving grounds' for all the Masters confronted with the sixth Initiation of Decision."

This training in decision is given by forcing the Master to make basic decisions within His Ashram affecting world work and involving all within the Ashram. It is given by His admission to the conclave of the Masters, meeting every seven years. At that conclave They make decisions which concern all forms of life in all the kingdoms in the three worlds and their evolutionary progress; it is put to the test in group form when the entire Hierarchy meets at Its centennial conference and - at that time - decides what form of crisis, on what level of consciousness, and involving what group of lives, must be implemented and presented to humanity, though the other kingdoms of nature will be necessarily implicated. The reason for this is that the meeting of such a planned crisis will hasten certain realizations. Forget not that humanity grows through the presentation of moments of crisis. These moments of crisis, based on past karma, conditioned by the point in evolution already achieved, and on the presence in the three worlds of certain appropriate ray forces, are brought to the point of precipitation by united decision in the conclave of the Masters.

These decisions do not affect man's free will, for the Hierarchy does nothing to condition man's approach to the crisis and, occultly speaking, Their "attitude is deliberately turned to other things" during the period of man's decision; thus the potency of Their thinking does not affect the human mind. Once the precipitation of the crisis is complete, and humanity has begun to take action of some kind, then the full attention of the Masters, working through Their Ashrams, is committed to the giving of full assistance to all those who are seeking to guide humanity along correct lines - a relative few among the countless millions of the ignorant.

All this should give you some idea of the synthesis which expresses itself through the three planetary centers: Shamballa, the Hierarchy and Humanity. These are responsible for the conditioning of the other planetary centers and the consequent demonstration of divine intention. The basic purpose of Sanat Kumara is to bring about right relations in every field of His manifested life. The encouraging factor is today that the activity of humanity itself is, for the first time, concerned with the entire subject of right human relations and how to bring it about. I would have you reflect on this, for it means that, again for the first time, humanity is consciously responding to the will and intention of Shamballa, even though without realizing the esoteric implications. This is of far greater importance than you can imagine, for it signifies a new relationship of a spiritual nature and deeply spiritual results.

Thus within His Ashram the Master learns "occultly to decide" and to condition the creative center for which He is responsible. He has to do this with the Ashram, surrounded by all those who are in training and who are the agents of His will. Through them He must act, and they thereby limit necessarily the vision to which He reacts, and step down the rate and quality of the energy of which He is the focal point. This energy constitutes the animating life of the Ashram as well as the force which the disciples and initiates must use in their work in the world, this of course in cooperation with the energy which each disciple within himself "occultly generates" and for which he - in his lesser degree - is responsible.