"The question now arises: How can this awakening and co-ordination (of the centers) be brought about? What steps must be taken in order to produce this vitalization and the eventual synthetic activity of the three centers? . . . So oft the aspirant is anxious to be told some new thing, and when he is told some old truth -- so old and familiar that it fails to call forth a registering response -- he feels that the teacher has failed him, and so succumbs to a sense of futility and depression. . . . Let us enumerate (the requirements) in tabulated form, and then we will deal briefly with each point afterwards:
i. Character building, the first and essential requisite.
ii. Right motive.
iii. Service.
iv. Meditation.
v. A technical study of the science of the centers.
vi. Breathing exercises.
vii. Learning the technique of the Will.
viii. The development of the power to employ time.
ix. The arousing of the Kundalini fire.
. . . Do you appreciate the fact that if you were making full use of each piece of information given in the course of the training, and making it a fact in your experience, and were living out in your daily life the teaching so steadily imparted, you would be standing ere now before the Portal of Initiation? Do you realize that truth has to be wrought out in the texture of daily living before new truth can be safely imparted? . . .

Right Motive. . . . The question which the seeker now asks and which he only has the right answer, is: What is the motive governing my aspiration and my endeavor? Why do I seek to build upon a true foundation? Why do I so diligently invoke my soul?
The development of right motive is a progressive effort, and constantly one shifts the focus of one's incentive when one discovers himself, as the Light shines ever more steadily upon one's way and constantly a newer and higher motive emerges. Again, let me illustrate: An aspirant in the early stages is practically always a devotee. To measure up to the standard set by a loved friend and teacher, he struggles and strives and gains ground. Later, this object of his devotion and ardent effort is superseded by devotion to one of the Great Ones, the Elder Brothers of the race. He bends all his powers and the forces of his nature to Their service. This incentive is, in its turn, surely and steadily superseded by a vital love for humanity, and love of one individual (be he ever so perfect) is lost sight of in love for the whole brotherhood of men. Unceasingly, as the soul takes more and more control of its instrument, and the soul nature steadily manifests, this too is superseded by love of the ideal, of the Plan and of the purposes underlying the universe itself. The man comes to know himself as naught but a channel through which spiritual agencies can work, and realizes himself as a corporate part of the One Life. Then he sees even humanity as relative and fractional, and becomes immersed in the great Will.

Service. A study of right motive leads naturally to right service, and often parallel in its objective form, the motivating consciousness. From service to an individual as an expression of love, to the family, or to the nation, there grows service to a member of the Hierarchy, to a Master's group, and thence service to humanity. Eventually there is developed a consciousness of and service of the Plan, and a consecration to the underlying purpose of the Great Existence Who has brought all into being for the fulfillment of some specific objective." (A Treatise on White Magic, p. 200/4)

"It must be carefully borne in mind that the main task of the aspirant is the handling of energies, both in himself and in the world of physical phenomena and externalization. This consequently involves an understanding of the centers and of their awakening. But understanding must come first, and the awakening at a much later date in the sequence of time. This awakening will fall into two stages:
First, there is the stage wherein, by the practice of a disciplined life and by the purification of the thought life, the seven centers are automatically brought into a right condition of rhythm, vitality and vibratory activity. This stage involves no danger, and there is no directed thought -- in connection with the centers -- permitted to the aspirants. By that I mean he is not allowed to concentrate his mind upon any one center, nor may he seek to awaken or energies them. He must remain engrossed with the problem of purifying the bodies in which the centers are found, which are primarily the astral, etheric and physical bodies, remembering ever that the endocrine system and the seven major glands in particular, are the effectual externalizations of the seven major centers, and is dealing with their environing matter and with the living substance which completely surrounds them. This is all that can be safely undertaken by the majority, and it is with this stage that the bulk of the aspirants in the world today are engaged and with which they must remain engaged for a long time to come.
Secondly, there is the stage wherein the centers, through the effective work of the earlier stage, become what is esoterically called "released within the prison house"; they can now become the subject (under proper direction by a teacher) of definite methods of awakening and of charging -- the methods differing according to the ray (personality and egoic) of the aspirant. Hence the difficulty of the subject, and the impossibility of giving general and blanket rules." (A Treatise on White Magic, p. 587/8)

"I would here like to point out two other matters, and so clarify the entire situation. There is much confusion on the subject of the centers, and much erroneous teaching, leading many astray and causing a great deal of misapprehension.
First I would state that no work, such as an effort to awaken the centers, should ever be undertaken whilst the aspirant is aware of definite impurities in his life, or when the physical body is in poor condition or is diseased. Neither should it be undertaken when the pressure of external circumstances is such that there is no place or opportunity for quiet and uninterrupted work. It is essential that for the immediate and focused work on the centers, there should be the possibility of hours of seclusion and of freedom from interruption. This I cannot too strongly emphasize, and I do so in order to demonstrate to the eager student that at this period of our history there are few whose lives permit of this seclusion. This is, however, a most beneficent circumstance, and not one to be deplored. Only one in a thousand aspirants is at the stage where he should begin to work with the energy in the centers, and perhaps even this estimate is too optimistic. Better far that the aspirant serves and loves and works and disciplines himself, leaving his centers to develop and unfold more slowly and therefore more safely. Unfold they inevitably will, and the slower and safer method is (in the vast majority of cases) the more rapid. Premature unfoldment involves much loss of time, and carries with it often the seeds of prolonged trouble." (A Treatise on White Magic, p. 589/90)

"Work in connection with the centers is incidental to true spiritual development, and is or should be purely mechanical and automatic. The centers are physical, being aspects of the etheric body, and constructed of etheric matter, and their function is simply to express the energy which flows in from the astral body, or from the mind or from the soul (in three aspects)." (Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. II, p. 604)

"If the tuning up and awakening (of the centers) is forced, or is brought about by exercises of various kinds before the student is ready, and before the bodies are co-ordinated and developed, then the aspirant is headed towards disaster. Breathing exercises, or pranayama training should never be undertaken without expert guidance, and only after years of spiritual application, devotion and service; concentration upon the centers in the force body (with a view to their awakening) is ever to be avoided; it will cause over-stimulation and the opening of doors on to the astral plane, which the student may have difficulty in closing." (The Externalization of the Hierarchy, p. 18)