Excerpt from “A Treatise on Cosmic Fire.” by Alice A. Bailey. 

The Factor of Manas.          Manasic & Karmic Purpose, Page 399-400

It will, therefore, be apparent that if all manifestation is the embodiment in form of a cosmic conception, and the working out of it in concrete shape, manas or intelligence is a basic factor of the process and the means whereby the link is made between the abstract and the concrete. This is already realized to be true in connection with man, and it is equally true of cosmic entities. As man progresses towards the heart of the mystery he awakens to a realization that the aim of evolution for him is to build consciously the channel between the levels which are to him the planes of the abstract or of the ideal, and the concrete ones whereon he normally functions. This connecting channel has been inadequately called, and is literally "THE PATH" itself. He builds it:

• By means of the manasic principle consciously applied.
• By the process of transcending the karmic limitations of the three lower planes.
• Through the method of dominating matter, or the Personality, considering it as the Not-Self.
• Through the expansion of his consciousness through graded steps until it includes the planes he seeks to reach, and thereby demonstrating the truth of the statement that in order to tread the Path he must become that Path itself, and the accuracy of the occult truth that the antahkarana is itself but illusion. Ponder on this, for it carries illumination for those who have eyes to see.

In the process of treading that Path and of achieving the goal, man is resolved into the five-pointed star, finally into the triangle of Spirit....

Between these two stages is a mysterious esoteric stage wherein he is resolved into the four, - not this time the four of the lower quaternary, but a higher four....

Karma works through manas, and only as the six-pointed star (or the sumtotal of concrete mind in its various divisions) becomes the five-pointed star, or the synthesis of the lower into the abstract or higher, is the transmutation into the three, or the Spiritual Triad, made possible via the four, or the formless repositories of karmic purpose; thus is liberation achieved, thus is man set free, and the microcosm attains BEING without the necessity of form-taking.