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3. The Throat Center: This center is to be found at the back of the neck, reaching up into the medulla oblongata, thus involving the carotid gland, and down towards the shoulder blades. It is an exceedingly powerful and well developed center where average humanity is concerned. It is interesting to note in this connection that:
a. The Throat center is ruled by Saturn just as the two Head centers are ruled respectively by Uranus (ruling the Head center) and Mercury (ruling the Ajna center). This is only where the disciple is concerned; the rulership changes after the third initiation or before the first. These three planets constitute a most interesting triangle of forces and in the following triplicities and their inevitable inter-relations you have—again only in the case of disciples—a most amazing picture story or symbol of the ninefold of initiation:
1. Head – Ajna - Throat
2. Third Eye - Right Eye - The Left Eye
3. Pineal Gland - Pituitary Body - Carotid Gland
These present the mechanism through which the Spiritual Triad, the Soul and the personality work. The key to a right understanding of process lies in the relation of the three planets: Uranus, Mercury and Saturn, as they pour their energies through these nine "points of Spiritual contact" upon the Physical plane into the "grounded sphere of light and power which is the man in time and space."
b. This center is related to the first initiation and develops great activity when that point in experience is achieved, as it has been achieved by the vast majority of men who are at this time the aspirants and the probationary disciples of the world. (Forget not that, technically speaking, the first major initiation from the hierarchical angle is the third. The first initiation is regarded by the Masters as signifying admission to the Path. It is called an initiation, by humanity, because in Lemurian days, it was then the first initiation, signifying entrance into complete physical control). It is the organ for the distribution of creative energy, of the energy of the third aspect by Souls at the above point of evolution. There are three centers in the human being which are related to and the major expression of the third Ray or aspect at certain differing stages of development upon the path:
Here again you have a great triplicity of energies, containing great potencies today, owing to the fact that the expression of the third aspect of active intelligence has reached such heights through human development and consciousness.
c. It is related to the personality by the creative thread, to the Soul by the thread of consciousness, and to the Monad by the Sutratma or life thread. It is not related to any of the divine aspects by the Antahkarana because that thread which links Monad and personality directly (and finally independently of the Soul) simply anchors the Monadic expression of life in the head, at the Head center. Then direct consciousness is established between the Monad and the personality, and a great duality comes into being. Life, consciousness and form are then all focussed creatively and actively in the head, and their activity is directed from the head via the two Head centers. The Ajna center only comes into creative activity when the Antahkarana has been built. In the earlier stages it is the Throat center which is the creative agent, and in the earliest period of all the sacral center is active.
You have one interesting thing to remember. The building of the Antahkarana only becomes genuinely possible when the creative life of the aspirant shifts from the sacral center into the throat and is becoming factual and expressive. Of this connecting "bridge," the neck itself is the symbol, as it relates the head—alone and isolated—to the dual torso, consisting of that which lies above the diaphragm and that which lies below—the symbol of the Soul and the personality united, fused and blended into one. The head is the symbol of what Patanjali describes as the state of "isolated unity."
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