The three stages of creation apply to both our individual and group work. Understanding them can help us in our own spiritual growth and ability to contribute to the Plan. While for the New Group of World Servers the stages are linked to years, for individuals it is the sequence, not the time frame, that is important.

Conflict produces points of crisis, then a point of tension, and eventually a point of Emergence. (R&I:639)

Today, the conflicts are numerous, vital and unavoidable; they are present in the individual consciousness and in the mass consciousness; they present constant points of crises and are today bringing about a point of world tension that seems well-nigh unbearable. But ahead of the individual disciple and of humanity lies a point of Emergence. (R&I:638)

For individual disciples:

In the life of every disciple, particularly of those who face certain great expansions of consciousness, a point of crisis will come about. In that point of crisis, decisions are voluntarily or involuntarily made; having made them, disciples then stand at a point of tension, with the decision behind them and the next step to be taken becoming clearer to their mental perception and influencing their attitude to the future. When the work is done in the period of tension, then there comes what we might call the point of emergence. This is both an emergence from and also an emergence into a field of experience. (RC:68)

For the New Group of World Servers:

Make each three year cycle conform to the rhythm of creation. In the first year, lay your emphasis upon the activity of the manifesting principle, using that which appears and with which you have to work. In the second year, let the clarity and the quality of the note to be sounded by the manifesting form appear and be heard. In the third year, behind the form and expressing itself through the quality, let the livingness and the work of the indwelling life emerge for all to see. Bear this in mind as you consolidate the work. The keynote of the first year's work is consolidation, that of the second year must be expansion whilst the keynote of the third year must be the making of a definite impact upon the public consciousness, by the sounding and the emphasizing of some one clear note....The New Group of World Servers must work in these three year cycles and the foundation of cyclic attainment must be laid. This cyclic rhythm will release from strain and yet enable the workers in the Group to feel that there is no failure. It is impossible to do good work where a sense of failure or lack of attainment is found. (DINA1:165)