While Libra marks a point of balance before the testing and trial of Scorpio, Sagittarius marks another point of balance after that testing, for the Sagittarian Archer has to acquire and hold a steady eye, hand and stance before firing the arrow which, if rightly directed, will carry him to the portal of initiation in Capricorn. One of the major themes of Sagittarius is Direction. The Archer is focused on one clear objective with a specific goal. When this focus becomes highly developed, it will stimulate all activity to align with the Plan of God, which is said to be the ordered direction of God’s thought. It’s said that there is no true direction apart from thought, and that’s why thought is power. The seeker learns this best by subjecting a phase in the personal life to the individual’s own mental direction. Choosing a goal, giving it one’s unwavering focus, and seeing its realization in due time is an invaluable lesson in handling the energy of the mind.
Visualization, the writings of Alice Bailey say, is the secret of all true meditation work, particularly in the earlier stages. Time and practice are needed to develop this capacity, and one must learn to refine the developing idealism that steadily grows. Esoterically, idealism is the power to use the vision and direct one’s course towards it. Perhaps that is one reason that the path of spiritual development in Sagittarius takes place on level ground, on the plains of Earth, because the path which navigates between the pairs of opposites is easily swayed by fanaticism, for it clouds the vision and can cause the seeker to lose the way. The hindrances of fanaticism aren’t limited to personal desire; they can appear even among dedicated disciples who are glamoured by the future beauty while remaining oblivious of the present opportunity, as Alice Bailey wrote. To guard against this, we’re advised to cultivate “a wide open simplicity which waits expectant of that new thing which is so ready to precipitate but which is hindered by the idealists of the world far more than by the man in the street”, in Bailey’s words. The initiate stands ready for the instant recognition of what is new—the new concepts that possess a dynamic expulsive power able to meet the need of the immediate cycle. Yet at the same time he or she is ready to instantly relinquish all that seems futile and unnecessary and inadequate to the need of the hour, and for the reception of a higher power which breaks and destroys that which has become crystallized.
In these confusing times when half-truths and outright lies are tossed into the global digital pool, and when the convictions of so many seem to be hardening into ever deepening resistance to change, spiritual seekers can make an important contribution to the clarifying of the vision lying ahead of the present age by remaining faithful to evidence, to facts, to the presentation of a positive future attainable if humanity wills it to be. Much as Polaris, the pole star for our planet, provides guidance, stability and alignment for our planet, so those same qualities apply to the attaining of a vision. And perhaps alignment is the first and most essential component. This reality brings in the significance of the seeker’s proceeding from a solid foundation of mental alignment with the larger group, “holding fast to the truth as a lamp”, in the Buddha’s words, while maintaining readiness to adjust perception of the vision as the intuition develops.
We’re told that disciples and aspirants “grow through the means of a presented vision—unattainable as yet but definitely an expression of the known and previously grasped. Such is the mode of evolution”, Alice Bailey wrote, for it is ever a pressing forward towards the sensed.” (italics added) Using the creative imagination, the ability to sustain a higher vision, and maintaining simplicity while directing all efforts towards realization of the vision, all help to deepen our understanding of the keynote of Sagittarius: I see the goal. I reach that goal and then I see another. Let us work in meditation towards this progressive vision.