June 26, 1920

We shall study today the effect of occult meditation upon the centers and their consequent vivification, positing a meditation prefaced always by the use of the Sacred Word, uttered according to rule.

We speak also of a meditation followed under the guidance of a teacher. The man therefore will meditate correctly or approximately so; thus what we are to consider today is the factor of time, in its relationship to the centers, for the work is slow and necessarily gradual. Here I would pause to emphasize to you the need of ever remembering that in all work that is truly occult expected effects are very slowly achieved. Should a man seem in any one incarnation to make spectacular progress it is due to the fact that he is but demonstrating what has already been earlier acquired (the manifesting forth of innate faculty, acquired in previous incarnations) and is preparing for a fresh period of slow, careful and painstaking endeavor. He recapitulates in the present life the processes surmounted in the past, and thus lays the foundation for renewed effort. This slow and laborious effort, which is the consistent method of all that evolves, is after all but an illusion of time and is due to the fact that consciousness is at present for the majority polarized in the lower vehicles and not in the causal. The states of consciousness succeed each other apparently slowly, and in their slow progression lies the chance for the Ego to assimilate the fruit of these stages. [82] It takes a long time to establish a stable vibration, and it takes as long to shatter it, and to impose another and still higher rhythm. Growth is one long period of building in order to destroy, of constructing in order to disorganize later, of developing certain rhythmic processes in order to later disrupt them, and to force the old rhythm to give place to the new. What the Personality spends many thousands of lives in establishing is not going to be lightly altered when the Ego - working in the lower consciousness - seeks to effect a change. The shifting of polarization from emotional to mental, and thence to the causal and later to the threefold Spirit inevitably entails a period of great difficulty, of violent conflict both internally and with the environment, intense and apparent darkness and disruption - all these things characterize the life of the aspirant or the disciple. What causes this and why is this so? The following reasons may make it apparent why the path is so bard to tread and the process of mounting the ladder (as one nears the higher rungs) becomes ever more complicated and difficult.

1. Each body has to be dealt with and disciplined separately and thus purified.
2. Each body has to be readjusted and aligned.
3. Each body has to be subjected to repolarization.
4. Each body is practically reconstructed.
5. Each subplane above the fourth (for on the fourth the life of the aspirant starts) has to be dominated.
6. Each center has to be gradually, carefully and scientifically awakened, its revolutions have to be intensified, its radiations electrified (if I may borrow that term and apply it to the centers) and its force must demonstrate through the higher dimension. [83]
7. Each etheric center has to be magnetically linked, in full alignment, with the corresponding centers in the emotional and mental bodies, so that the flow of force is unimpeded.
8. Each center has then to be awakened afresh by the Sacred Fire till the radiations, the velocity and the colors are keyed to the egoic note. This is part of the work of Initiation.

As each change is gradually made, it responds to the same law that governs all cyclic growth in the macrocosm:

1. First comes the clashing of the old with the new rhythm.
2. This is followed by a period of gradual dominance of the new, elimination of the old, and the stabilization of the new vibration.
3. Then finally comes the passing on and out, and again a repetition of the process.