1. It corresponds to the physical sun and is the expression of the personality, integrated and functioning - first of all as the disciple, and finally as the initiate. This is the true persona or mask.
2. It achieves this functioning activity fully by the time the third initiation is taken. I would remind you that this initiation is regarded by the Hierarchy as the first major initiation, a fact which I have already communicated. It is the organ for the distribution of the energy of the third aspect - the energy of active intelligence.
3. It is related to the personality by the creative thread of life, and is therefore closely connected with the throat center (the center of creative activity), just as the head center is related to the center at the base of the spine. An active interplay, once established between the ajna center and the throat center, produces a creative life and a manifested expression of the divine idea on the part of the initiate. In the same way, the active interplay between the head center and the center at the base of the spine produces the manifestation of the divine will or purpose. The forces of the ajna and the throat centers, when combined, produce the highest manifestation of "fire by friction," just as the energies of the head center and the basic center produce the individual "electric fire" which, when fully expressing itself, we call the kundalini fire.
4. It is the center through which the fourth Creative Hierarchy on its own plane finds expression, [148] and here also this Hierarchy and fourth kingdom in nature, the human family, are fused and blended. The head center relates the monad and the personality. The ajna center relates the Spiritual Triad (the expression of the monad in the formless worlds) to the personality. Ponder on this statement, because you have here - in the symbolism of the head center, physically considered - the reflection of the spiritual will, atma, and spiritual love, buddhi. Here also comes in the teaching on the place of the eyes in the development of conscious expression, creatively carrying forward the divine purpose.

• The Third Eye - the head center - Will. Atma.
  The eye of the Father - the Monad - SHAMBALLA.
  The first aspect of will or power and purpose.
  Related to the pineal gland.
• The Right Eye - the ajna center - Love. Buddhi.
  The eye of the Son - the Soul - HIERARCHY.
  The second aspect of love-wisdom.
  Related to the pituitary body.
• The Left Eye - the throat center - Active Intelligence.
  The eye of the Mother - the personality - HUMANITY.
  The third aspect of intelligence.
  Related to the carotid gland.

When these three eyes are functioning and all of them "seeing" simultaneously, you will then have insight into divine purpose (the initiate), intuitive vision of the plan (the disciple), and a spiritual direction of the resulting creative activity (the Master).

5. The ajna center registers or focuses the intention to create. It is not the organ of creation in the [149] same sense that the throat center is, but it embodies the idea lying behind active creativity, the subsequent act of creation producing eventually the ideal form for the idea.
6. Its dense physical externalization is the pituitary body; the two lobes of this gland correspond to the two multiple petals of the ajna center. It expresses imagination and desire in their two highest forms, and these are the dynamic factors lying behind all creation.
7. It is the organ of idealism therefore, and - curiously enough - it is closely related to the sixth ray, just as the head center is essentially related to the first ray. The sixth is peculiarly linked to the third ray and the third aspect of divinity as well as to the second ray and the second aspect. It fuses, anchors and expresses. This is a fact which I have not hitherto emphasized in my other writings. The ajna center is the point in the head where the dualistic nature of manifestation in the three worlds is symbolized. It fuses the creative energies of the throat and the sublimated energies of desire or the true love of the heart.
8. This center, having only two real petals, is not a true lotus in the same sense as are the other centers. Its petals are composed of 96 lesser petals or units of force (48 + 48 = 96) but these do not assume the flower shape of the other lotuses. They spread out like the wings of an airplane to the right and left of the head, and are symbolic of the right hand path and the left hand path, of the way of matter and the way of spirit. They constitute symbolically, therefore, the two [150] arms of the Cross upon which the man is crucified - two streams of energy or light placed athwart the stream of life descending from the monad to the base of the spine and passing through the head.

The idea of relativity is one that must ever be held in mind as the student seeks to comprehend the centers, interiorly related within the etheric body, related at the same time to the subtler bodies, to the states of consciousness which are synonymous to states of being and of expression, to ray energies, to environing conditions, to the three periodical vehicles (as H.P.B. calls the personality, the threefold soul and the Spiritual Triad), to Shamballa and to the totality of manifested Lives. The complexity of the subject is extreme, but when the disciple or initiate is functioning in the three worlds and the various energies of the whole man are "grounded" in the earth bound man, then the situation becomes clearer. I use the expression "grounded" in its true and correct sense, and not as the description of a man who has discarded his physical body as the spiritualists use the term. Certain recognitions in time and space become possible; certain effects can be noted, certain ray influences appear more dominant than others; certain "patterns of being" appear; an expression of a spiritual Being at a certain point of conscious experience emerges into clarity and can then be spiritually diagnosed. Its aspects and attributes, its forces and energies, can be determined at that time and for a particular created expression of life. This must be borne in mind, and the thoughts of the student must not be permitted to rove too far afield but must be concentrated upon the appearance of the man (himself or another) and upon the emerging quality. When that student is a disciple or an initiate, he will be able also to study the life aspect. [151]

Our study will, however, be somewhat different, for we shall attempt to discover the diseases and difficulties incident to the energy stimulation or the lack of stimulation of the centers, and so arrive at some of the effects which this energy inflow and conflict with forces will produce.