Your Soul Ray

Your Soul Ray

Every human soul is on one of the seven rays that stream out from the seven "stars" of the Great Bear. Each ray has its own color and its own note. Certain attributes and influences are distinctive in each ray. There are also certain tendencies inherent in each ray that can be obstacles on one's path. As you learn to recognize the ray of your soul, you can find your best type of meditation and relate to your life purpose.

The notes that follow are adapted from the Tibetan Teacher's emphasis. As you read these notes, open to the possibility that they are true and accurate. Accept only that which rings a bell in your mind or stimulates your soul to attention. This will be useful and helpful in your spiritual expansion.These particular comments focus on the type of meditation that will take you forward on your path.

Everyone has a personality ray and a soul ray. The mind is on one ray and your emotions are usually on a different ray, as is your physical body. The life journey is to bring these parts of the personality into harmony, and following the integration of the personality, to bring the personality into harmony with the soul so that they form a powerful unity.

The Rays of the Soul

"The ray on which one's soul body is found determines the best type of meditation. Each ray necessitates a different method of approach, for the aim of all meditation is union with the divine.

When the soul ray is on the Power Ray, (Ray I) the method of approach has to be by the application of the will in a dynamic form to the lower vehicles; it is largely what we term achievement by an intense focusing, a terrific one-pointedness, that inhibits all hindrances and literally forces a channel, thus driving itself into the Triad.

When the egoic ray is the second or the Love-Wisdom Ray, (Ray 2) the path of least resistance lies along the line of expansion, of a gradual inclusion. It is not so much a driving forward as it is a gradual expanding from an inner centre to include the entourage, the environment, the allied souls, and the affiliated groups of pupils under some one Master, until all are included in the consciousness. ...

When the egoic ray is the third or Activity-adaptability Ray, (Ray 3) the method is somewhat different. Not so much the driving forward, not so much the gradual expansion as the systematic adaptation of all knowledge and of all means to the end in view. It is in fact the process of the utilisation of the many for the use of the one.

All these three different methods have the same result, and are fundamentally all forms of the one great method employed in the evolution of love or wisdom,—the goal of endeavour in this present solar system.

You have the will driving a man on to perfection, through realisation of the Higher, and resulting in the service of power through love in activity.

You have the wisdom or love aspect driving a man on to perfection through the utilisation of his oneness with all that breathes, resulting in the service of love through love in activity.

You have the activity aspect driving a man on to perfection through the utilisation of all in the service of man; first by the utilisation of all for himself, then by the graded steps of the utilisation of all for the family, of all for those he personally loves, of all for his environing associates, and thus on and up till all is utilised in the service of humanity.

When the soul ray is the attributive Ray of Harmony (Ray 4) the method will be along the line of the inner realisation of beauty and harmony; it needs the knowledge of Sound and Colour and the shattering effect of Sound. This is the process that leads to the realisation of the notes and tones of the solar system, the note and tone of individuals, and the endeavor to harmonise the egoic note with that of others......

Its exponents develop along the line of music, rhythm and painting. They withdraw within in order to comprehend the life side of the form. The outer manifestation of that life side in the world is through that which we call art. The great painters and the superlative musicians are in many cases reaching their goal that way.

When the fifth ray, the Ray of Concrete Science or Knowledge is a man's ray, the method is very interesting. It takes the form of the intense application of the concrete mind to some problem for the helping of the race; it is the bending of every mental quality and the [Page 18] controlling of the lower nature so that one supreme endeavor is made to pierce through that which hinders the downflow of the higher knowledge. It involves also the will element (as might be expected) and results in the wresting of the desired information from the source of all knowledge.It is mentality driving a man on to perfection and forcing him to utilise all knowledge in the loving service of his race.

The Ray of Devotion (Ray 6) is pre-eminently the ray of sacrifice. When it is the egoic ray the method of approach through meditation takes the form of one-pointed application, through love of some individual or ideal. A man learns to include through love of person or ideal; he bends every faculty and every effort to the contemplation of what is required, and in sacrifice for that person or ideal lays even his causal (soul) body on the flames of the altar.

When the egoic ray is the seventh or Ray of Ceremony Law or Magic (Ray 7) the method is that of the glorification and comprehension of form in approach. As said earlier, the goal of all the meditation practices is approach to the divine within each one, and, through that, approach to the Deity Himself.

The method, therefore, is the bringing under law, order and rule, of every act of the life in all the three bodies, (the entire personality, body, emotions, and mind--LH) and the building within the causal body (of the soul LH) of an expanding form ..... It is the study of the law and the consequent comprehension by the man of how that law is wielded and why; it is then the definite application of that law to the body of causes so as to render it needless and thus effect its shattering. Emancipation is the result, and the man frees himself from the three worlds. Many occultists are coming in on this ray at this time to continue the liberating process. It is the method that leads a man to liberation through the understanding and the intelligent application of the law to his own life, and to the ameliorating of conditions in the body of humanity, thus making the man a server of his race."

Adapted from Letters on Occult Meditation by Alice Bailey, pp. 15-19.