66. ALICE BAILEY - Discipleship in the New Age,Vol. II - 07. SECTION TWO - TEACHINGS ON MEDITATION - PART 1

SECTION TWO - TEACHINGS ON MEDITATION - PART 1

PART I

In continuing the instructions on the Science of Meditation, I would remind you that we are building upon the same fundamental truths which have been earlier laid down (in Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I), and that our goals and objectives likewise remain the same. Our immediate concern is the bringing about a group unity rooted in love, and this requires the awakening of the heart centre into greater potency. In this connection, let me repeat what I earlier said, for it makes a fitting preface to what I shall ask you to do:

"Only from the heart centre can stream, in reality, those lines of energy which link and bind together. For this reason, I shall give you for your group meditation a form which will stimulate the heart into action, linking the heart centre (between the shoulder blades) to the head centre through the medium of the heart centre which is found within the head centre (the thousand-petalled lotus). This heart centre, when adequately radiatory and magnetic will relate you afresh to each other and to all the world. This again—when connected by an act of the spiritual will to the solar plexus centre—will help to produce that telepathic interplay which is so much to be desired and which is so constructively useful to the spiritual Hierarchy—provided it is established within a group of pledged disciples, dedicated to the service of humanity. They can then be trusted." (Page 87.)

The activity of the heart centre never demonstrates in connection with individuals. This is a basic fact. What devastates most disciples is the solar plexus ability (when purified and consecrated) to identify itself with individuals. The heart centre cannot react, except under group impetus, group happiness or unhappiness, and other group relations.

The following diagrammatic form illustrates the procedure which I suggest that you follow:

There are two points of vital light within the solar plexus centre, which makes this centre of dominant importance and a clearing house for the centres below the diaphragm to those above it. One of these points of light is connected with the lower psychic and astral life, and the other is brought into livingness by the inflow from the head centre. I would here remind you that the centres above the diaphragm have only one vital point of energy, whilst the centres below the solar plexus also have only one, but that the solar plexus itself has two points of dynamic energy—one most ancient and awakened, being expressive of the life of the astral or lower psychic body, and the other waiting to be brought into conscious activity by the soul. When this has happened, the awakening to the higher issues of life makes the disciple sensitive to the higher "psychic gift waves" (as the Tibetan occultists call them) of the spiritual world.

All this is a somewhat new concept for the average esotericist and theosophist, and is one of the new items of information which disciples (in preparation for initiation) are told. This truth lies behind the method of meditation which I shall seek to give you, and which is divided into two parts—one aspect or technique will cover approximately the first six months, and the other the second six months. This dual meditation is a group meditation and will have primarily a group effect. This fact must be most carefully recognised by each disciple.

I would have you ponder most earnestly upon this imparted information. The meditation which I wish to assign will be divided into two parts:

Stage I. A stage wherein there is a lifting of the energy of the heart centre to the head by means of directed, controlled aspiration—deliberately stimulated, mentally appreciated, and emotionally propelled. I am here choosing my words with care for their symbolic import.

Stage II. Next, the deliberate dispatch of spiritual energy to the solar plexus, through an act of the will; this will result in the awakening of the hitherto quiescent point of force which lies behind (or rather within) the active and awakened centre.

It will be apparent to you that the first stage is occupied with what is regarded esoterically as the "withdrawal to the centre of inspiration" and it is to this withdrawal that I call you all today, prior to the definite and detailed group work—later to be outlined. Under cyclic law there are periods of outgoing and of withdrawing, of progressing in service towards the periphery of activity and also of a conscious abstraction of the consciousness from the outer circle and its centring again at the very heart of life. It is to this retreating within that I summon you—a retreat which must be continued and consciously held until the next Full Moon of May. You might regard it as the individual phase of alignment and of preparation to which each of you is called, and called prior to participation in the group meditation with which you will be occupied for the remainder of the year, after May. Stage II and its successful issue will be largely dependent upon the success achieved during Stage I.

Stage I itself is divided into two parts, and to these I now call your attention. The first part of Stage I is a short dynamic meditation, carried out every morning with the greatest regularity. The second part is a reflective process or cultivated recognition which will serve to condition your day's activity. This conditioning attitude should be one of a constant recollection of purpose and objective, and a process of what has been called "intentional living." It connotes the effort to live consciously at the centre and then to work outward from there in radiatory, magnetic activity. I am not here speaking symbolically but literally for it is all a question of the focus of consciousness. If this attitude can be constantly held until the Full Moon of May, the individual seeds within the group periphery (could we symbolically call it the seed pod or sheath?) will become living and potent units of energy (spiritual energy) and the succeeding period of group interrelation and group activity will be correspondingly potent. In the furtherance of this process, leading to radiatory and magnetic living, the method suggested is as follows:

STAGE I

1. Reflective alignment of soul and personality, using the creative imagination in the process. This is a "feeling" or astral activity.

2. Assumed relation of solar plexus, heart and head, and the focus of the assuming consciousness to be in the region of the ajna centre. This is done mentally.

3. When this has been achieved and realised, there follows next the concentration of aspiration and of thought in the heart centre, imagining it to be just between the shoulder blades. It must be recognised that the concentration of thought energy is definitely there.

4. Then follows the conscious and pictorial (or imaginative) withdrawal of the heart's aspiration, life and devotion into the centre above the head (the thousand-petalled lotus), and its conscious focussing there.

5. When this stage has been reached, and the conscious recognition of place and activity is being gently yet surely held, then sound the Sacred Word, OM, very softly three times, breathing out and towards:

a. The Soul.

b. The Hierarchy.

c. Humanity.

These three recognised factors now constitute a definite and linked triangle of force.

6. Then say with heartfelt intent (consider the significance of those two words) the invocation which I gave you in my communication in September, 1939:

The sons of men are one and I am one with them.

I seek to love, not hate;

I seek to serve and not exact due service;

I seek to heal, not hurt.

Let pain bring due reward of light and love.

Let the soul control the outer form and life and all events,

And bring to light the love which underlies the happenings of the time.

Let vision come and insight.

Let the future stand revealed.

Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.

Let love prevail.

Let all men love.

7. Endeavour throughout the day to continue holding this recollection steady and work always in due remembrance of the morning's meditation.

This activity should take only a few minutes, but if it is carried out with a fully awakened consciousness and with the most carefully focussed attention, the results may be most potent and effective—far more so than you may think. The meditation should take less than ten minutes, after you have succeeded in familiarising yourself with the process; firm foundations will thus be laid for the group work and the group meditation, which I intend to give you in May, when I will give you your personal and group instructions.

At the time of the Full Moon each month—dating from the time that you receive these instructions and until further notice—I would ask you to work as follows:

1. Group yourselves, all twenty-four of you, symbolically, pictorially and imaginatively around your Teacher, and—with Him—face the East, standing in a semi-circle slightly behind Him.

2. Then stretching out your hands in blessing, say together with solemn, voiced intent the formula or Mantram of Unification, beginning "The sons of men are one," which you have been using each morning in your personal meditation. Throw the power of your focussed thought and will into and behind the words.

3. Stand then together in the light which streams ever from the East and see it pouring through the Master to each of you, entering by the head centre, passing from thence to the heart centre, and then from the heart it is directed by an act of the focussed will— expressed and propelled forth consciously—to the quiescent point of dim light within the solar plexus.

4. Then, withdrawing again to the head centre, endeavour consciously to see the three centres (head, heart and solar plexus) linked together so that the heads of all the group members are thinking as one and the hearts of the group members are loving as one. Your aspiration also (through the spiritual awakening of the solar plexus) will then surge upwards as one spontaneous movement. This will in due time create a magnetic field of light and life, within which the New Group of World Servers will live, mature and come to fruition.

Keep the whole process, my brother, very simple and uncomplicated in your mind. If you will follow the above instructions with the simplicity of a little child, you will bring about a situation wherein work will be possible. Look not for results. Yours is to do the outlined work and this, when rightly done, makes the due result inevitable. But as I told you before, "it is the inner life of reflection and the outer life of expressed love which will determine the success of the needed group relation and the potency of its future work" in the service of humanity.

PART II

In the last instruction, I started you on the first part of the new meditation. The completed meditation involves the process of relating heart and head and then—by an act of the will—linking up both with the quiescent point within the solar plexus—that point of which nothing has as yet been taught (though the necessity for such a point was obvious in the work of transferring energy) but which is of vital significance in all preparation for initiation.

That is as far as I took you in the last meditation but to it must be added the individual meditation which will aid in group integration and in the unfoldment of the individual disciple.

You will have noted, I am sure, that in the meditation assigned for daily use, I did not carry it forward to where the will is exerted and the energy in the head is driven to the quiescent centre in the solar plexus. You will have noted also that at the time of the Full Moon and in group formation, plus direct contact with myself, you were permitted together to link heart, head and solar plexus. Once a month and then only through the protective magnetic field of the group life can you complete the meditation.

The Full Moon work will remain as already assigned for the remainder of the year, but we will complete the meditation and I will now outline for you Stage II in the group meditation. The first half should now be so familiar to you that it will be automatic in its doing and should take only a few minutes to complete. It is in the nature of a preface to the one I am now seeking to assign. It should leave each of you (if carrying it forward to a right conclusion) with the consciousness and heart energy focussed in the head. The activity of the true spiritual man has not been aroused, and when it is, the effect on the downflow of energy from the head centre will be threefold:

1. The awakened point in the solar plexus will become extremely active and—if the work is correctly done—it will make that point also exceedingly magnetic, gathering all the energies of all the centres below the diaphragm (except the one at the base of the spine), and this involves the sacral centre and other little focal points of energy, up into the solar plexus. There they must be held steady until such time as the man is ready to deal with them occultly.

2. The unawakened or quiescent point of light in the solar plexus comes slowly to life and to a state of new vibratory activity. Its magnetic field steadily increases and widens until it contacts the periphery of the magnetic field surrounding the heart centre.

3. When the two above stages are completed, then comes a lengthy process of transference. The solar plexus is the clearing house between the lower energies and the higher. This process is in itself dual:

a. The two points within the solar plexus field of activity become definitely related to each other, and the lower sacral and material energies are transferred into the hitherto quiescent point of light, now awakened and intensifying in quality and potency.

b. The concentrated energies in the new centre within the periphery of the solar plexus are then lifted by an act of the will into the heart centre and from thence to the head.

In this triple transference of the lower energies to the solar plexus, to the heart and finally to the head, we have a pictorial and symbolic presentation within the life experience of the disciple of the interrelation and eventual transference of energy from the personality (symbolised by the solar plexus) to the soul (symbolised by the heart centre) and from the soul to the Monad (symbolised by the head centre). These correspondences are of value as they are an argument for the factual nature of the process and they also enable the aspirant to grasp somewhat the nature of the undertaking to which he is committed. Certain aspects of relationship, therefore, emerge into the consciousness of the disciple and at this point in his training the following four relations are of major importance:

1. The relation of the energies, found below the diaphragm and corresponding to the personality life (motivated by desire), and the higher energies found above the diaphragm and motivated by the soul. These are as yet in the case of the average aspirant, practically entirely quiescent and only become a realised activity as the soul establishes increasing control over the disciple.

2. The relation between the two points within the solar plexus itself. These are symbolic also of the personality-soul relationship. One point is awakened, as to the lower life of man; the other point is awakening, as in the case of the aspirant, or is totally awakened as is the case of the pledged disciple, prior to the second initiation.

3. The relation between the solar plexus and the heart. This is of great importance and serves to clarify the mind of the aspirant because it is symbolic again of the immediate present problem of the personality and the soul.

4. The relation between the ajna centre (between the eyebrows) and the thousand-petalled lotus. When these two centres are correctly related to each other, then the man can take the third initiation at which time the potency of the Monad can begin to make its presence felt, linking heart and head and solar plexus.

There is an intermediate stage in which the heart and the ajna centre become aligned and related. This stage is omitted from the enumeration given above owing to the fact that it is of a sevenfold nature and the method of transition and of transference is dependent upon the ray quality. One new item of information comes naturally here. The throat centre is not included in these relationships between centres above the diaphragm as it is to them what the sacral centre is to the solar plexus—a point of pure creative activity, set in motion by the interplay of the other centres but particularly is the throat centre energised and actuated eventually by the sacral centre itself. It is an effect or result of relation more than anything else.

Three other items of interest might here be mentioned. First, the throat centre is brought into real activity by the direct action of the soul, via the head centre, in conjunction with the raising of the energy of the sacral centre simultaneously. This is analogous to the fact that the solar plexus is brought into real constructive usefulness by the direct action of the soul, via the heart centre. That is why people who work creatively usually have first ray personalities at the time that the throat centre becomes dynamically active for the first time. Secondly, the solar plexus centre is awakened by the inflow of energy of a dual nature—the energies of the heart and the head, working synchronously. This is a correspondence to the dual energy which constitutes the essential nature of the soul—atma-buddhi, or spiritual will and spiritual love. The third soul energy, manas or mental energy is related more directly to the throat centre. Thirdly, it might be stated that the awakening of the centre at the base of the spine is the result of an act of the will directed from the head and resulting in the elevation of all the energies to the head, just as the solar plexus was awakened and energy was carried to the heart—also by an act of the will. The energy of the solar plexus, that great clearing house for personality energy, must be carried always to the heart.

Here I would again caution you and call attention to my earlier statement that all stimulation of the solar plexus and all focus upon that centre carries with it definite danger, and disciples are enjoined to exercise wise control over the emotional nature. A decentralised attitude as regards personality reactions and a steadily deepening love of humanity will safeguard disciples at this stage—the stage of seeking to fit themselves for the first or the second initiation.

We will now continue with the second phase of the meditation. It was carried to the point wherein you were asked to say as a soul the great Mantram of Unification.

STAGE II

1. Repeat rapidly Stage I, taking not more than five minutes in so doing. Lift your consciousness and relate the head and the heart. Repeat thoughtfully the mantram which eventually leads to the realisation of unity.

2. With the focus of the consciousness then in the head, summon the Will to your aid and by an act of the will carry the energy focussed in the head to the solar plexus. To facilitate this process, you can use the following formula:

a. I am the soul. And also love I am. Above all else I am both will and fixed design.

b. My will is now to lift the lower self into the light divine. This light I am.

c. Therefore, I must descend to where the lower self awaits my coming. That which desires to lift and that which cries aloud for lifting are now at-one. Such is my will.

Whilst saying these mantric words (taken from a very ancient disciples' manual) vision pictorially the process of focussing—demanding—descending and at-one-ing.

3. Pause here and endeavour to feel and sense the initiatory vibration or embryonic interplay which is being established between the awakened and the awakening points within the solar plexus. This can be done, but it involves an act of slow concentration.

4. Then sound the OM twice from the head centre, knowing yourself to be the soul which is breathing it forth. Believe this sound, carried on the breath of will and love, as capable of stimulating the solar plexus in the right way and able to transmute the lower energies so that they will be pure enough to be carried first of all to the awakening point and from that point eventually to the heart centre.

5. As you vision the energies of the solar plexus being carried up the spine to the heart centre (situated, as you know, between the shoulder blades) I would ask you to breathe out the OM again into the solar plexus but this time, having done so, draw the focussed energy up the spine towards the head. The vibration thus established will carry the energy to the heart, for it has to pass through that centre in the spine on its way to the head. In the early stages that is as far as it may go, but later it will pass through the heart, leaving its due quota of energy, and finally reach the head centre.

6. Then focus yourself in the heart, believing that a triangle of energy has been formed between the head, the heart and the solar plexus. Vision it then as composed of the energy of light, something resembling a triangle of neon light. The colour of this neon light so-called will be dependent upon the ray of the soul.

7. Then again repeat the Mantram of Unification, beginning "The sons of men are one..."

8. Standing, therefore, in the centre of the heart see the energy of your group brothers as the radiating spokes of a great wheel of light. This wheel has twenty-four spokes and at the centre of the wheel, like the hub of the wheel, can be found your Master (D.K.). Then slowly with love, mention aloud the names of each of your group brothers, not omitting yourself.

9. Then see this wheel as actively moving and scintillating, and thus serving humanity through its focussed radiation. This radiation is the radiation of love. All the above is purely symbolic but carried out as a visualisation process for some months—consistently and consciously—it will create a state of mind and of awareness which will be enduring because "as a man thinketh, so is he."

10. Then close with the new Invocation and also with the Gayatri, with its emphasis upon one's duty.

OM      OM      OM

This meditation process is relatively simple if you familiarise yourself with its stages for a few weeks. Much of the above is explanatory in nature and can be dispensed with when you can follow the process automatically.

I will now proceed to give you each your personal instructions and individual meditation. This meditation should be done at some time of the day which is not the time chosen for the group meditation. I do not want the two meditations done together at the same time, for I do not want your personality problems and your possible glamours to be interjected into the group consciousness. Beware of doing this because the task of each of you is hard enough without being complicated by the personal problems of some distressed brother in the group. In giving you your personal instructions, I shall speak with complete frankness and shall not spare you either praise or blame. If you resent what I may say, then it will simply indicate the power of your personality to react unfavourably to the truth and will consequently point out to you an area of blindness and of weakness in your consciousness. You will be thereby the gainer and will be able to grasp somewhat more clearly the nature of the battle which you have to fight.

PART III

As individuals, many of you have used regularly (and profited thereby) the meditation which I gave you thus far in this series of instructions. But speaking generally, the group as a whole has not given as much attention and thought to the processes outlined in the two parts of the one meditation, as I had hoped and asked. I would ask you, therefore, to renew your activity along this line from now until May, when—if you work with tension and achieve results—I can give you another meditation which will climax the work done and bring another centre into activity. There is little that I can do with you until this meditation work has been patiently and regularly done and produced effective results—from my point of view. I shall not be able to give you another meditation unless you strive afresh, and together, at the daily process outlined by me.

This meditation is one of the most important of the steps I shall ever ask you to take in these early preparatory stages of your work. It must precede the more definite training which may be possible if you persevere in the work outlined. I would remind you that this is my last effort with you in this incarnation and on the physical plane. You have put your hand to the plough and there is no turning back for any of you, but the time factor is determined by each of you and not by me. There may be times in the process of training you and preparing you for initiation when you may temporarily fail to understand the reasons for the requests I may make and for the requirements presented to you. Forget not that the aspirant to the Mysteries proceeds blindly in the early stages; only after the third initiation do the scales fall from his eyes. Therefore, follow obediently (though voluntarily) my requests as I endeavour to teach you the ancient rules.

Will you also, at this point, study anew the teaching I gave in the earlier instructions on the theme of Visualisation and explained why it is the secret of all true meditation work in its earlier stages? I seek not to repeat, but that teaching is needed by you at this stage. (Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I. Pages 89-91.)

In connection with your Full Moon work, I seek to change the process which has been followed by you for so long—the process of entering my study and there contacting me. I will give you another symbolic process which will follow five stages:

1. At the time of the Full Moon (covering five days) picture to yourselves an ocean of blue and upon the horizon can be seen slowly rising a blazing sun.

2. Picture yourself as throwing yourself into the ocean, free of all encumbrances, worries, anxieties and cares, and as swimming towards a rowboat, lying midway between you and the rising Sun. As you swim, you become aware of your group brothers, also swimming in the same direction. You recognise, know and love each other.

3. Then visualise yourself as climbing into the boat. When all of the group are in, then see yourselves as each grasping an oar, and together, rhythmically and steadily, rowing towards the rising Sun. There is harmony of stroke, of purpose and of direction.

4. Then see—between you and the rising Sun—a figure moving toward you. It will be myself (the Master D.K.), coming from the light, in your direction. In the clear pathway of the light you can see me distinctly. You see metogether.

5. Then say, inaudibly, yet as a group:

"Into the light we move, beckoned thereto by thee. Out of the dark we come, driven thereto by the soul of all. Up from the earth we spring and into the ocean of light we plunge. Together we come. Together we move, guided and led by the soul we serve and by thee, the Master we know. The Master within and the Master without are One. That One are we. The One is all—my soul, thy soul, the Master and the soul of all."

If you will each of you do this on the five days of the Full Moon (as earlier detailed), you will produce a group fusion of purpose which is for you the next desired step. You have worked at a group fusion in love; some success is apparent. Now work at the united evocation of the will.

Each month send in your Full Moon report. I would ask you to do this each month, embodying your Full Moon report and your meditation report into one unit because the activity of reporting is of real service in centralising your thought and therefore your life within the group life. It is simply in the nature of a symbolic happening—a symbol of your progress, your purpose, your contribution and your cooperation, and all from thegroup angle. Therein lies its value. The so-called informative aspect of these reports is relatively negligible as such to groups like this. But the symbolic usefulness is great and has a definite group usefulness.

One suggestion I will make. At the time of your Full Moon Approach to me, endeavour to have in your consciousness the words from Formula One (given in Section Three): "Upon the stream, between the two extremes, there floats the eye of vision. " You need to remember that from one point of view these symbols are related to the antahkarana, that line between two points, and that as you build the antahkarana in your own lives so will be the growth of your understanding of the formula. As you progress upon the "way of the chela," so will grow your power. Use the formula actively as far as you can and do not rest satisfied with just attempting to understand some of its significances. It has a magical import, and when understanding is coupled with the use of the will, this formula constitutes a Word of Power of magical service.

PART IV

As I have studied the meditation work of each of you (and both you and I know whether it has been faithfully followed or not), I have become aware of a basic need and that is the need for Alignment. You need a more direct contact between heart-head-soul. This, necessarily, in preparation for a still higher contact. The two parts of the exercise you have been following since the new seed group was organised have not done what was intended and only three of you have profited adequately from that work. I am, therefore, giving you a very simple alignment exercise which I would ask you to follow together until further notice. I emphasise the word together and shall continue so doing in the hope that the group will move forward with a uniform procedure for this will produce the greatest and most rapid results. It is good for you to have in mind that the better you do this exercise and the quicker and closer your alignment, the better will be the group alignment. The exercise is so short and simple that you may regard it as too elementary. I assure you that it will reward any constant effort. It had been my intention to give another meditation, involving another centre, but the results of the work done do not warrant this. Perhaps a better alignment may lead to a more constant application and a more direct and understanding occult obedience. I would ask you, therefore, to do this simple alignment exercise every day.

I. Start with the point of soul focus of which you know much theoretically and can know more practically. This falls into three stages:

1. Raise the consciousness into the head.

2. Carry the thought or consciousness upward through the astral body and the mind to the soul.

3. Identify the personality consciousness with the soul consciousness, and realise that they are one.

II. From that point, definitely and consciously, assume the attitude of the Observer. This also involves three stages:

1. Observe the personality and consider it from the angle of the etheric body.

2. Consciously throw soul energy down into the centre at the base of the spine. Then raise it slowly, via the five centres and the two head centres (ajna and highest head centre), up into the soul body. This produces, when correctly done, a vivifying of the sutratma and links the personality and soul into one blended unit. It is what might be called the acme of alignment.

3. Then endeavour to throw the attention of the united soul-personality toward the Spiritual Triad.

III. Reflect upon the antahkarana and its relation to soul-personality and the Monad.

In your personal instructions this year, I am not going to be explicit nor am I going to give you each an individual meditation. The time for that is past. You have had much along that line. I am going to revert to an aspect of the old system of training and give you hints and brief injunctions, leaving you to do your own interpreting, to make right application and to profit or fail to profit as seems best to you.

These injunctions will take the form of six statements, sentences or aphorisms which will contain for you a particular message at which you can arrive if you will take each of them into your daily meditation. You have a year in which to do this and can, therefore, make the six statements into six seed thoughts for meditation, or reflective brooding—one for each month for six months. Then repeat with the thought in view that during the second six months you will do what you can to make the effects of the previous period of reflection, a dynamic factor in your life. Thus you will externalise the results of the preceding cycle of spiritual and mental brooding. In this way, your subjective realisation can become an objective happening. Do this exercise each morning at the close of the alignment work, endeavouring to hold the mind steady in the light and to achieve as far as you can the brooding quality of the soul when in deep meditation. This will not be easy at first, but if you adhere faithfully to instructions, you will consciously realise sure gain. I suggest ten minutes' brooding each day (with pencil in hand if you so prefer) and then—during the day—keep the seed thought or statement in what is called "the back of the mind." There it can gestate. In this way you will not only arrive at the meaning of your personal injunctions, hints or instructions (for that is what they may prove to be when you arrive at their intended meaning), but you will at the same time learn to cultivate the "double life pattern" of the pledged disciple. He carries on with the lower mind and the higher mind simultaneously, and the stream of spiritual thought and activity consciously flows whilst the outer pattern of his life proceeds with increasing usefulness.

Here are the six statements for each of you, and I will take you alphabetically as usual. One word I would add: Seek not to interpret and understand your brother's instructions. Telepathic interplay, unrealised, naturally exists among you and your thought and interpretations (based on insufficient knowledge) would undoubtedly impinge upon your brother's mind. This could not fail to have effects. You might interpret wrongly and in any case you know not my intentions where your brother is concerned. Your thought might emphasise a concrete meaning whereas I might have in view a totally different application. Keep your mind, therefore, off your brother's instructions. Your duty lies in the daily releasing of steady illumined love, free from all criticism. It is not your duty to aid your brother to become a better occultist and disciple. That is his concern, his soul's concern and mine.

Many of the hints given and the sentences in which they are embodied are taken from an old Book of Rules for disciples. Some are directly from me, your Master, and are applicable to your problems or your duty.

PART V

The meditation work assigned to you thus far falls into three parts:

a. The stage of raising the energy of the heart centre into the head centre.

b. The stage of sending energy from the head centre to the solar plexus centre.

c. A definite and planned process of alignment.

I found, as you know, that the great need of the group was to develop the relatively simple attitude of instantaneous relation to or contact with the soul, and through the soul with the Master and His Ashram. I therefore assigned an alignment exercise when I last communicated with you, and this I did in lieu of more abstruse meditation practices.

This meditation is intended to bring about three most definite results:

a. The interrelation of the seven centres, and therefore an uninterrupted flow of energy.

b. The interplay of energy between the members of this group in my Ashram, via the seven centres. The group thoughtform will have in it seven points of energetic life, the energies of which will be contributed by the group members. This etheric form of the group life will be an expression of the sum total of the seven types of energy as each individual member utilises them.

c. The fusion, consciously and deliberately engineered, of the individual soul with the group soul, and later with the Hierarchy—via my Ashram.

To do this work correctly, we will start with the premise that "energy follows thought." This is the first and most fundamental, as well as the most ancient, premise of the esotericist. The second is related to the first and will have a place in our considerations. It states that "the eye, opened by thought, directs the energy in motion."

Disciples, during the early stages of their training, are apt to regard energy as a pool or a reservoir upon which they can learn to draw, thus appropriating a quota of that energy for their need, their service and their use. But energy is fluid and in motion; we live in a veritable sea of moving forces, qualified in countless ways, conditioned by countless minds, misdirected oft, directed wisely sometimes, yet all of them perforce finding place in the mind content of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, and outside Whose range of influence naught can be. Disciples have, for aeons, been using the energies and forces found in the three worlds for personality ends and for the furthering of their major interests, whatever those may be. They have learnt somewhat to lay hold and use a measure of soul energy, thereby enlightening their way, improving their spiritual expression in the three worlds and serving a little. They are also beginning to grasp the significance of intention and of purpose, whilst an inner programme is slowly conditioning their daily lives. There comes, however, a point—a point which it is now your duty and privilege to grasp—wherein another source of energy, of inspiration and of light can be made available to disciples and can be used for service. That is the energy of the Forces of Light, originating in the Ashram and emanating thence; you stand as yet upon the periphery of the Ashram but can avail yourselves of these energies.

The force of the Ashram must be "routed" through the soul (if such a word is permissible). The disciple has therefore to learn the esoteric significance of a most familiar symbol—that of the Triangle and the Square.

This has hitherto signified to him the threefold soul and the fourfold personality, or if he is advanced enough in knowledge, the Spiritual Triad  and the fourfold  personality. Now he must view it in another light and learn to know it as the triplicity of the Ashram, the soul and the disciple himself, with the square representing humanity, the fourth kingdom in nature. This is consequently a great decentralising symbol, and around it your new meditation will be built. This meditation, if carefully followed, can and will bring about basic changes in your lives. The symbol is capable of being arranged in several ways, and all of them have to be mastered factually by the disciple—theoretically, visually, practically, intuitionally and factually. Each of these words will convey a specific meaning, and rightly apprehended will bring about changes in the disciple's life, in his service, and therefore in his effect within the Ashram.

Let me now, brother of mine, outline for you the line of thinking which should be pursued by you as you seek to penetrate into the true significance of this symbol which is the theme of your meditation. It constitutes a normal development from the work already done. In the first two meditations given, you dealt with the centres of the etheric body, and were therefore dealing with the personality, the "city which stands foursquare." You were next enjoined to practise alignment, thereby arriving at the recognition, and in some cases the contact, with the spiritual triplicity, which is that which "hovers over the square and radiates the energy of light into this waiting field of active thought."

You will note that the entire process is therefore kept in the realm of the non-material and that the physical brain is not, at this stage, at all involved. You, as you seek to meditate, are thinking on planes of mental perception; you are focussed there, and the brain is held throughout this period in a state of waiting and attentive quiescence. The disciple has—as oft I have told you—to master the process of carrying on a dual thinking process, wherein he is preserving a continuity of mental impression and a constant activity connected with daily living and service. This is registered in due course by the brain. This is of major importance and one of the objectives which should provide you with ample opportunity for effort during the coming year's work.

This threefold spiritual reality (which is the "impressing agent") is the goal of the presented meditation work. It is notin this case the soul, whose impression upon the mind is that of love, its manifestation and its place in the Plan of the Hierarchy. The source of the impression to which you now seek to be sensitive is the Spiritual Triad, and the quality of the impression is the will, as it implements divine purpose. I am therefore indicating a far more advanced stage, and I do so for two reasons: One is that for years the effort of all of you has been towards the registering of soul contact and the expression of loving understanding; you are familiar with what the Hierarchy (of which my Ashram is a part) seeks to accomplish, and there is nothing to be gained by a constant reiteration of the familiar. I am, secondly, outlining procedures, meditations and objectives which will be of use to those who come after you and who will be the hierarchy of workers at the close of this century and during the first quarter of the coming century.

I stated that one significance of this symbol is that it stands for the triplicity of

1. The Ashram,

2. The soul on its own plane,

3. The disciple upon the physical plane,

whilst the square represents humanity; that this is frequently spoken of as the "city which stands foursquare," and is familiarly referred to in modern literature and discussions as the "city of man."

In considering the higher point of the triangle, which is the Ashram, I would remind you that radiation from Shamballa enters the triangle at that point and that, through the Ashram, will, purpose and strength can pour. This is a relatively new achievement within the Ashrams of the Masters. In the major group Ashram (which is the Hierarchy itself) this reaction to impression from Shamballa is arrived at as the energy pours in, via the two Great Lords, the Manu and the Christ. It is also registered by Their senior disciples, the Chohans and initiates of the sixth initiation, such as the Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi. Lately the Master R. has taken the position of Mahachohan, and that achievement has carried the entering force down into the ranks of those Masters Who have taken the fifth initiation thus enabling Them to step down this Shamballa force to Their individual Ashrams. This happening has produced a tremendous stimulation with all the attendant opportunities, manifestations, and dangers. Masters such as myself have had to learn to handle this great potency, and at the same time to make as much of it as we can (safely and wisely) available to our senior disciples.

It might be said symbolically that "the point of the triangle is based in the courts of Heaven (Shamballa) and from that point two streams of power pour forth into the  realm of soul and into the heart of the disciple. Thus is the Triad formed; then are the energies related unto the world of men; thus can the will of God appear, and thus can the Great Lord Who guards the Council Chamber of this sphere of solar Life carry His purpose to the holy groups (the Ashrams. A.A.B.), and thence into the minds of men, and this because their hearts are safeguarded by the fire of love." Ponder upon this ancient writing: It refers to the cycle immediately confronting us, of which the work I am at this time seeking to do is but a tiny living part.

Therefore, as you prepare for the meditation process which you will undertake during this coming year, start by a consideration of the Ashram of the Hierarchy itself, of its relation to Shamballa, of its constitution, formed as it is of many Ashrams. Some of these are working under the Chohans; others are working under the Masters, and some are embryonic as yet, being gathered slowly together by Adepts of the fourth initiation. Will you endeavour to realise the factual nature of this great, living, spiritual organism? It constantly "substands" or underlies the world organisation. See it as a growing, vital reality, of such life and potency that it can break through or break up all limiting outer organisations and, by the very force of its interior life, eventually externalise itself