Ray 4 and the Art of Living

There is a duality found in Taurus, the sign that receives and distributes the energy of Ray 4 in the Big Dipper. At first Taurus provides us with all types of desires &emdash; the desire for comfort, possessions, lots of money, and great big success. Then Taurus provides us with the aspiration, persistence, and patience to achieve all those desires. We work long hours away from home at money-making situations that really have little to do with our creativity and leave us with no time to enjoy life. But, those big desires and aspirations are what we focus on foremost in our lives . . . . at least for a while.

There comes a time when we realize that we don't have a life away from work &emdash; that perhaps a life where our daily-and-life needs are separate from the type of work we do no longer serves its purpose. We find ourselves doing more than we have time for, our job is something we no longer look forward to, and the children, homekeeping, and most pleasures are being neglected. Despairing, we recognize that there is a duality occurring in our lives and that if our schedule (or work, or economic situation) continues in the same manner, there is little to no hope for balance.

This is a familiar refrain for many of us on the planet now who feel that our work is separated from our needs and that we are no longer intimately connected or creatively involved in our daily lives. There is a growing realization that we are living neither a constructive nor a creative life and that it is shattering and cracking in half.

The awareness of this duality in our lives provides us with important information on a Soul level. We must understand that not only is the insight concerning the dualities in our lives actually an awareness that something must change, but that it is the Soul who is communicating this to us as an important aid in our development.

Taurus and Ray 4 are interesting archetypal forces. While Taurus lures us into stability, we actually end up in duality (at first). And while Ray 4 is about the art of living, it really provides us with a tremendous amount of tension, chaos, and discomfort along the way. Why is this? Life has a way of wanting to constantly evolve.

Life also consists of many (forty-nine) different levels of reality. One of these levels of reality is the emotional field, the place where desire resides and glamour (distortion) is the result. Whereas Taurus helps us develop desires, they always end up emotionally distorted. But we must, as Spirits within matter, experience these realms and, with the help of the Soul, climb out of them. And we must do it through the Taurean processes of gaining illumination and calling upon our will(ingness) to proceed to the next level of development. It is Ray 4 that creates the tension that pushes us ever upward.

The questions that Ray 4 and Taurus are really asking us, after we've experienced the duality, are: What represents constructive living? What are the means by which a group, a town, a city, a nation, or a world achieves harmonious and constructive living? What instruments need to be forged to achieve this? And what types of people, thought processes, and belief systems will foster a life in which work is not separated from daily living &emdash; where freedom, creativity, and cooperation are the primary focus of life and the group is enhanced by the gifts of each individual?

Each of us must respond to these questions for ourselves. To be able to answer them are the purposes of Taurus and Ray 4. For within this sign and ray lie the mystery of the Purpose and Plan of God. But I will give you a little hint as to the answers. It has to do with Aquarius and the Aquarian Age. Aquarius is the sign of groups of like-minded people coming together, consciously forging communities based upon the freedom of the individual and the art of living a constructive, enlightened, and cooperative life in harmony with the Purpose and Plan of Divine Will.

There was a German social philosopher who worked all this out on paper and whose theories were published all over the world. But humanity was not able to understand his dynamic theories of social change and thus radically distorted them. Read and studied today by astrological esotericists familiar with the purpose of Taurus, the deeper level within this social theorist's work would be understood and never again interpreted or used as a model for repressive force against entire nations of people. This author was a Taurus and his name was Karl Marx.