Balance, and the Adept

[βαθμιαίος]

Each energy may be activated without the beauty that is possible through the disciplines and appreciations of personal energies or what you might call the deeper personality or soul identity.

This quote, with its mention of discipline and beauty, reminds me of the quote from which I took my user name:

To the disciplined entity, all things are open and free. The discipline which opens the universes opens also the gateways to evolution. The difference is that of choosing either to hitchhike to a place where beauty may be seen or to walk, step by step, independent and free in this independence to praise the strength to walk and the opportunity for the awareness of beauty.

The hitchhiker, instead, is distracted by conversation and the vagaries of the road and, dependent upon the whims of others, is concerned to make the appointment in time. The hitchhiker sees the same beauty but has not prepared itself for the establishment, in the roots of mind, of the experience.

I think peregrine's invocation of the idea of subtlety is on the right track. I am reminded of Ra's description of the magical personality/higher self:

The three aspects of the magical personality, power, love, and wisdom, are so called in order that attention be paid to each aspect in developing the basic tool of the adept; that is, its self. It is by no means a personality of three aspects. It is a being of unity, a being of sixth density, and equivalent to what you call your Higher Self and at the same time is a personality enormously rich in variety of experience and subtlety of emotion.

Shemaya, I, too, love the musical metaphor. It reminds me of one last quote:

If these are studied there comes the moment when the deep threnodies and joyful ditties of the deep mind can successfully be brought forward to intensify, articulate, and heighten some aspect of the magical personality.

So maybe the adept, with subtlety and discipline, refines and tunes its instrument in order that the harmony plucked by the Creator may be as beautiful as possible, shimmering, to mix metaphors shamelessly, like the fanned peacock's tail.