Libra represents a pause at the halfway point of the zodiacal circle, a moment of recollection, balance and equilibrium before entering into the battle of the warrior in Scorpio, the clear-eyed focus on the goal of the archer in Sagittarius, the ascent up to the mountaintop in Capricorn, world service in Aquarius, and finally, salvage by the world Savior in Pisces. “Before creation”—prior to taking further action—“silence and the stillness of a focused point” is said to apply both to Aries, the entry point of the zodiac, and to its polar opposite Libra. Thus, quite appropriately, Libra is a sign of balancing, of careful weighing of values, and of achieving a right equilibrium between the pairs of opposites, Alice Bailey wrote. In human life, these are important qualities for maintaining harmonious relationships. Many—perhaps most—differences of opinion and points of view can be resolved in a spirit of compromise and accommodation. However, as is apparent in the tectonic cleavages which have opened up in today’s world, threatening relationships on all levels and bearing profound moral and spiritual implications, balance seems elusive and moral clarity a rare attribute. A false equivalence called “bothsidesism” too often seems to prematurely arrest the search for resolution by appearing to give equal credence to the various views while ignoring factual evidence. To apply this mistaken approach to the energies of Libra and its keynote—I choose the way which leads between the two great lines of force—would be a misunderstanding of its profound spiritual implications for the seeker of the Way.

In Libra the vision of the narrow razor-edged spiritual path first emerges, yielding a shock of recognition as the arduous precision required of the way forward begins to dawn on the consciousness of the seeker. Powers of the developed mind such as dispassion, discernment and detachment are demanded in order to move forward. It is this period of spiritual struggle that is depicted in the anguish of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Confronted by a bitter war between factions within his own family, and seeing the suffering on all sides of the conflict, he feels overwhelmed and cannot see a way to avoid the need to act. Arjuna is the perennial peacemaker, caught between two sides and dreading to make a choice. In his dilemma we can understand why the glamour of the peacemaker is just that—a glamour. Krishna, Arjuna’s spiritual guide in the conflict, appeals instead to the warrior instinct, the high courage and valor of the soul. Seeking to invoke Arjuna’s courage, the theosophist and Sanskrit scholar Charles Johnston wrote that Krishna declares “Nothing is better for a warrior than a righteous battle. Making equal good and ill fortune, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thyself for the fight! Thy right is to the work, but never to its fruits. Standing in union with the soul, carry out thy work, putting away attachment, equal in success and failure, for equalness is union with the soul.”

However, this only confuses Arjuna, for if soul vision is the chief aim, why enter into battle? Why make a choice? Krishna responds that withdrawal from the battle doesn’t end it, because the mind and desire still remain active. “Not work and warfare bind us, but the mysterious power of desire, which would draw all things to itself. This is what binds the heart and soul”, Johnston writes. Only determination and detachment can serve to clarify the way between the pairs of opposites by opening up the channel to the intuition—the realm of pure reason, of direct knowing—not through analysis but by instantaneous revelation of the real. This is the third way which provides a path of transcendence above the division created by the pairs of opposites, leading to liberation from the glamour of conflict.

The writings of Alice Bailey say that the problem of Arjuna is the problem of all disciples, because it demands the development of the intuition, which is even higher than the well-stocked mind. Through the sequence of dispassion, discrimination and finally detachment, relinquishing all hope for personal gain and piercing between the pairs of opposites, a higher way reveals the utter synthesis behind the outer diversity of the world. This is the significance of Krishna’s sudden revelation to Arjuna as the all-pervasive, all-consuming oneness of God. In Alice Bailey’s words, “Arjuna suddenly sees the form of God in which all forms constitute the One Form. The battle is then over. The soul is in complete control; no sense of separativeness is again possible,” she wrote. In this essential Unity of the One, all differences are resolved. This is the transcendent path to which Libra leads.