This brings me to the consideration of the seventh point I made in my earlier analysis of Rule I. I said, "The soul's meditation is rhythmic and cyclic in its nature as is all else in the cosmos. The soul breathes and its form lives thereby". The rhythmic nature of the soul's meditation must not be overlooked in the life of the aspirant. There is an ebb and flow in all nature, and in the tides of the ocean we have a wonderful picturing of an eternal law. As the aspirant adjusts himself to the tides of the soul life he begins to realize that there is ever a flowing in, a vitalizing and a stimulating which is followed by a flowing out as sure and as inevitable as the immutable laws of force. pro atwebpages

This ebb and flow can be seen functioning in the processes of death and incarnation. It can be seen also over the entire process of a man's lives, for some lives can be seen to be apparently static and uneventful, slow and inert from the angle of the soul's experience, whilst others are vibrant, full of experience and of growth. This should be remembered by all of you who are workers when you are seeking to help others to live rightly. Are they on the ebb or are they being subjected to the flow of the soul energy?

Are they passing through a period of temporary quiescence, preparatory to greater impulse and effort, so that the work to be done must be that of strengthening and stabilizing in order to enable them to "stand in spiritual being", or are they being subjected to a cyclic inflow of forces? In this case the worker must seek to aid in the direction and utilization of the energy which (if misdirected) will eventuate in wrecked lives but which when wisely utilized will produce a full and fruitful service. The above thoughts can also be applied by the student of humanity to the great racial cycles and much of interest will be discovered. Again, and of more vital [63] importance to us, these cyclic impulses in the life of the disciple are of a greater frequency and speed and forcefulness than in the life of the average man. atwebpages ufo

They alternate with a distressing rapidity. The hill and valley experience of the mystic is but one way of expressing this ebb and flow. Sometimes the disciple is walking in the sunlight and at other times in the dark; sometimes he knows the joy of full communion and again all seems dull and sterile; his service is on occasion a fruitful and satisfying experience and he seems to be able to really aid; at other times he feels that he has naught to offer and his service is arid and apparently without results. All is clear to him some days and he seems to stand on the mountain top looking out over a sunlit landscape, where all is clear to his vision. He knows and feels himself to be a son of God.

Later, however, the clouds seem to descend and he is sure of nothing, and seems to know nothing. He walks in the sunlight and is almost overpowered by the brilliance and heat of the solar rays, and wonders how long this uneven experience and the violent alternation of these opposites is to go on.