To all this must be added the strain of the period itself, and the general condition of unhappy humanity. This subconsciously has its effect on all disciples, and upon all who are now working in the world. Some are showing signs of physical pressure, though the inner life remains poised and normal, sane and rightly oriented. Others are breaking up emotionally and this produces two effects according to the point of development of the aspirant to service. He is either, through the strain, learning detachment, and this curiously enough is what might be called the "defense mechanism" of the soul in this present period of world unfoldment, or he is becoming increasingly nervous and is on the way to become a neurotic. Others, again, are feeling the pressure in the mental body. They become bewildered in some cases and no clear truth appears. They then work on without inspiration, and because they know it to be right and they also have the rhythm of work. Others are grasping opportunity as they see it and, to do so, fall back on innate self-assertion (which is the outstanding fault of the mental types) and build up a structure around their service, and construct a form which in reality embodies what they desire, what they think to be right, but which is separative and the child of their minds and not the child of their souls. Some, in their turn, more potent and more coordinated, feel the pressure of the entire personality; the versatile psychic nature responds both to need and to the theory of the plan; they realize their truly valuable assets and know they have somewhat to contribute. They are still, however, so full of what is called personality that their service is gradually and steadily stepped down to the level of that personality, and is consequently colored by their personality reactions, their likes and dislikes, [625] and their individual life tendencies and habits. These eventually assert themselves and there is then a worker, doing good work but spoiling it all by his unrealized separateness and individual methods. This means that such a worker gathers to himself only those whom he can subordinate and govern. His group is not colored by the impulses of the new age, but by the separate instincts of the worker at the center. The danger here is so subtle that much care must be taken by a disciple in self-analysis. It is so easy to be glamored by the beauty of one's own ideals and vision, and by the supposed rectitude of one's own position, and yet all the time be influenced subjectively by love of personal power, individual ambition, jealousy of other workers, and the many traps which catch the feet of the unwary disciple.