SECTION FOUR - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - PART 1
BY THE TIBETAN
[443]
To L.D.O.
August 1940
One of the things, my brother, which is being developed in your consciousness is the basic spiritual fact that "whether in the body or out of the body" (as the initiate Paul expressed it), the life of the disciple does not stand still but inevitably—if he is sincere and earnest—proceeds from revelation to revelation. But for the pledged disciple, such as you are, this revelation is not confined to mystical depths and heights but becomes increasingly part of the recognisable brain consciousness. This is a lesson which you are learning rapidly and on that fact I congratulate you. Continue so to do and in the coming period of reconstruction you will be of effective service.
But, brother of mine, to be truly effective in the manner desired, you must cultivate the attitude of being only a clear unobstructed channel, and you must not block that channel with your ideas, your plans and your physical plane activities. I would not have you cease planning and working actively but I would have you be more discriminating and cautious. I would have you ponder on the relative usefulness of inspiring many to active work in the service of humanity, or sponsoring your own activities and focussing all your efforts upon organisation work. Such organisation work has ever faintly glamoured you. The arousing of the desire to serve and the kindling of the flame of intelligent love for mankind in the hearts of your fellowmen could provide for you an adequate field of service. It would enlist both your personality and your soul in active cooperation and is something you can do unusually well. The gift of divine inspiration, as it can be used to affect and galvanise others into activity, is rare, but is for you a natural result of your spiritual polarisation. This [444] you know, and of this faculty you should increasingly avail yourself. Seek, as I have earlier told you, to be; aim at being a conduit for spiritual force; cultivate the power of identification with those you seek to inspire, for this leads to direct transference of energy; develop divine indifference as to your form of service and ponder deeply on the thought of "service by radiation."
As you already know, the five rays governing your monadic expression as soul and personality are not particularly well balanced. There is in this incarnation too much of the second ray line of approach to divinity; you are primarily 2-4 where your rays are concerned. Where the personality ray, the mental ray and the astral ray are closely allied there is always found an easy problem of inner contact, relation and integration. When, however, the aggregate of inner energy comes to outer expression upon the physical plane, there appears what I might call a lack of stiffening and a too fluid response to spiritual impulses and ideals. There is a correct and undeviating life tendency towards the realm of spiritual reality, but in the field of manifestation and of creative activity there is frequently a changeableness and a developed habit of experimentation. The very versatility of the second ray (twice repeated in your life expression) tends to confuse the issue of service and its correct rendering in your mind. You do so many things, my brother; if you look back over your life, you will find that it is composed of short periods wherein you were intensely preoccupied with what you sincerely believed was the purpose of the moment. The time has now come when the purpose of the soul, in time and space, must become a pronounced conviction governing all future activity and all expression upon the physical plane, subordinating your entire lower nature (the three bodies) with fixed intent to the directed will of the soul.
For you, I would repeat, service by radiation is the way. To bring this about, it will be necessary for you to evoke the latent will which must be developed and controlling in you by the time the third initiation comes; at that time the monadic influence is predominantly that of the divine, purposeful [Page 445] will. The expression of this higher aspect of the will, in relation to the three rays of aspect on which all initiates are eventually to be found, is likewise threefold:
1. There is the dynamic will, as it is expressed by first ray egos.
2. There is the inclusive radiatory will of second ray souls. This is the kind of will-expression and recognised life purpose with which you must learn to put yourself in direct contact.
3. There is the magnetic will of the third ray ego which draws, attracts, manipulates and arranges in accordance with divine purpose. This is not the same kind of magnetism as that of love.
In the meditation, therefore, which I seek to give you, we will have this inclusive, radiatory will primarily in mind, and for the next few months I would have you follow these instructions....
Life is difficult these days but you lack not courage, and the sense of inner reality will hold you true to the goal and steady in expression. My attention turns towards you when you need it. I can be reached.
August 1942
1. Stand at the centre of dispassion with heart aflame, yet still.
2. Be not the centre of the work you undertake, the service rendered, but be its fluid life.
3. Transmute devotion to a cause, to me, to your brothers or your group into a flaming love for all that breathes.
4. Learn that your causes are effects. Leave them behind and seek the world of causes.
5. Three in this group stand close to you. Discover who they are and know the reason why.
6. Ask your soul the question: Why is D.K. the Master Who has sought me out?
[446]
September 1943
MY BROTHER:
Since I last communicated with you, more than a year ago, life has brought you certain radical changes—some of them as a result of the war and your personality reaction to that war, and a few of them as a consequence of soul impulse. These changes and their resultant readjustments have been so many and have been brought about with such relative suddenness that you have not yet had time to know with clarity (within yourself) the distinctiveness of each change or its emanating source. Every change in a life condition upon the physical plane is the result of some inner cause. I hinted at this when I gave you the six statements which were intended to aid in the direction of your life. I said to you: "Learn that your causes are effects. Leave them behind and seek the world of causes."
These words embody one of the first lessons which a disciple has to master, as you well know. The initiate lives in the world of causes, for this is obviously the world of initiation. He deals therefore with those basic happenings which act as life-impulses, and initiates only those activities which are formulated by him as a soul and (bear this in mind) as a soul whose personality is initiate. Because of this personality capacity of seeing "eye to eye" with the soul, his activities are results of deliberate spiritual intention.
This is, therefore, one of the first lessons which it is my duty (as it is the duty of every Master) to teach all those who have just been accepted into my Ashram. Such people are not beginners in the world of occult life as far as the average man is concerned, but from the angle of an Ashram most of you indisputably are. I have therefore to teach each of you something as to the nature of that world of causes, and how to discover whether you are not functioning as a personality seeking, as far as may be, to be sensitive to soul incentive, or whether you are literally functioning as a soul. These are two very different matters, my brother. How can you, as a disciple, decide what you are doing and know your reasons? All that I, as your Master, can do is to indicate an approach [447] to reality, and then leave you to arrive at right decision, via direct or intuitive knowledge, alone and unaided.
Decisions which a disciple has to make are based upon various urges, impulses and desires; they differ from those made by the average man because they are ever accompanied by questionings and by the practice of a constant and oft bewildering inner scrutiny of motive and purpose. You have faced many such periods of questioning in the past year, my brother, and your answers have definitely affected your personality life, your service to the Plan, your various group affiliations and your general attitude to the spiritual realm. This you know. One aspect of your nature is profoundly satisfied; the other is full of doubt and enquiry; your soul is on its way to a fuller and richer experience of life, and this involves difficulty.
In some ways, the war has not really touched you very profoundly, even if you retaliate by saying that it has touched you astrally and emotionally. Emotions are, however, ephemeral. Personality enterprises have offset greatly your reactions, and changes in your personality life, in your environment and in your established habits have offset much reaction. This is, perhaps, just as well. Then, too, your attempted world service has intensely preoccupied you, and you have tried to be what I suggested in my statement to you, "the fluid life" of all that you seek to do. In connection with that work I have only this to say: Your service will be best rendered if you refrain from regarding your planned organisation as unique and if you do not attempt to live up so entirely to the world concept. Your work is inspired from my Ashram; it is an integral part of much larger plans and is largely modelled upon those ashramic plans (which are part of still greater hierarchical endeavours) and has little in it that is original. It is a small part of a much larger whole and has a very needed part to play. I would remind you that very large trees can grow from very small seeds. Your seed is one of many in a large pod (to use a botanical symbol). This pod contains many similar seeds which will bear many similar trees.
You have a fluid mind and can do much if your emphasis [448] is placed where I suggest—a fluid life. Otherwise your fluid mind will incite you to so many useful activities that many of them will amount to very little. One of your major needs is a planned concentration and an ability to make discriminating choice as to activity and technique. You cannot possibly do everything that you see needs to be done; therefore, do that which will bring about the greatest amount of good to the greatest number of seeking souls. This is always a difficult matter for the creative worker to grasp. The doing of the thing which he plans is to him oft the satisfactory reward of effort, and his focussed activity and attention is founded upon what he creates. Yet the created thing is only an effect—an effect of what, my brother?
Again we come back to the subtle question which your soul seeks to have you answer this life, because in answering it you will find a release which will give you a definite opportunity in your next life. What motives are impelling you to action in your personality life, in your group relation, and in your service to humanity? A general answer will not suffice, for you will find that several widely different motives condition each field of expression, and when you know what they are, you will be able to bring all the three phases of your life into one rightly oriented functioning whole. Is your creative work the result of a desire to create, or is it impelled by love of humanity and, therefore, an automatic intelligent response to human appeal? Are you nurturing a small and healthy seed or are you endeavouring to transplant a tree? This last question has far more significance than perhaps you guess. It holds in its correct answering the secret of your success. Are you cooperating with the Plan, or in reality with your plans? Again a question of importance.
A rich life of service lies ahead for you in the coming period of reconstruction, but its full expression is dependent upon your achieving a point of focus, leading to a point of tension which will, in its turn, inevitably lead to a point of crisis. When these—focus, tension, and crisis—condition all your living, then your work will move ahead towards a most desirable fruition.
Like all creative workers, my brother and my friend, you [449] resent all forms which you do not yourself initiate. I am not, therefore, giving you a set form for meditation, but I am giving you a loose structure of thought which I would like to see govern your approach to life, to work and to all you do as a disciple coming forth from my Ashram. This will constitute your cooperative contribution to the group need and to humanity.
Take the three words which I have given you and seek to weave the energies which they represent into your life pattern, welcoming the changes which they may bring and knowing that they are, for you, the correct procedure because these three concepts govern the needed evolutionary process for you at this time—as they do for the bulk of disciples and, to a certain degree, all lesser developing nature.
I. Focus
Seek to ascertain in a wide and general sense where your major life focus is established. Is it emotional, mental, or on soul levels? Is it focussed consciously in the Hierarchy, in my Ashram, or where? What is your daily focus as you watch yourself each day of living? Where, each day, has your attention been, having in mind that a disciple's focus is frequently in one place whilst his attention is in another? Do you know what I mean when I say this?
II. Tension
Study for the next year whether you know the true significance of tension. For you, it should mean (speaking in a symbolism which you ought to understand) that moment of exquisite sensitivity which appears just as the life within reaches the point of "breaking forth" into the light. It is that moment of alert conscious anticipatory direction which distinguishes the runner in the Olympic games as he stands poised for his supreme effort and test. It should be, for you, the moment when you switch your identification with that which you do, away from that act of doing (which is in reality only an effect of an initiating cause or motive) into the world of origins, of motives and causes. In that supreme moment of tension you relate life [450] and form, the fluid and the concrete; then an organism, and not an organisation, takes shape before your eyes.
III. Crisis
The comprehension and the system of right reflection which the two above processes will generate must inevitably eventuate in a point of crisis. About such a crisis I can say little. It will take place in conformity with your ability to focus, in line with your attainment of the right tension, and the precipitation of the crisis will, therefore, give you release, freedom, clarity of vision and entrance into light.
In closing let me say: Preserve your essential and innate integrity, my brother. Be like the sapling which bears up against the storms of wind and rain, holding its life in form intact and gaining added beauty as strength develops.
My blessing rests ever upon you, and my cooperation and my help when need arises. On that you may count. Meet happiness and distress alike with equilibrium, and be a strong hand in the dark to all you meet.
November 1944
BROTHER OF MINE:
I believe that when this reaches you and you scan the interval between these instructions and the previous one, you will realise the significance of your life events in a new way. They have been many, and they have been varied. Do you appreciate what they mean? The past year brought you crisis after crisis; it involved periods of quiescence and of enforced activity; it also brought periods of a definite recognition of growth wherein you registered expansion and arrived at certain inner decisions by which you must and will abide, because they marked a certain high water mark of your soul's development.
Your problem is now concerned with this point of attainment. Is the high water mark reached a temporary one, preliminary to a still higher attainment, or have you—for this life—set your pace and can proceed no faster? Disciples, such [451] as you, need to learn that this type of decision indicates no choice between right and wrong, or between progress or non-progress. It is simply a decision, specifically related to timing. Such a decision calls for assessment, for recognition of presented opportunity in both karma and service, and for discreet decisions in relation to your activities upon the Path.
It is easy to overestimate the importance of any particular incarnation upon the path of life; it is easy to foster the consciousness of the personality in time and space, and thus fail to register the "insight" of the soul, regulating timelessness and knowing no past or future, but only a sense of Being (faintly and dimly, because this sense is a monadic prerogative) and of relationship (strongly and urgently).
Some souls in incarnation need constantly to spur their personalities on to action; they require to urge them to achievement and towards freedom from inertia. That is not a problem which confronts you, my disciple. For you, the "lesson of the interludes" is of major importance. I use this word in its most technical sense and as the Masters use it when attempting to incline any life within the Ashram into ways which are, for that unit of life, the essential process for the immediate moment.
In all breathing exercises, there are, as you know, the processes of inhalation and of exhalation, with two points intermediate between these two—that of the interludes. Beginners in the mechanics of right breathing seem inevitably engrossed with the processes involved, with the amount of air to be indrawn or out-breathed and with the consequent physiological effects and their etheric correspondence. Knowers and disciples pay small attention to this dual activity. They are preoccupied with what is proceeding within their consciousness during the interludes between the fixed inhalations and exhalations. These phases of registered consciousness are in reality points of detachment. They mark the cycles of tension and should be carefully studied and employed by you. This is a point in your future development to which I earnestly call your attention.
In my last instruction to you I gave you three words upon which to meditate and which were intended to constitute[452] the theme of your meditation work throughout the year. By the means of these words you could be enabled to gauge your life processes and determine activity. By means of them also (rightly used) you can arrive at a real understanding of the Law of Cycles—in your own life, in the life of any related group, and in the life of humanity itself. They are also closely related, as you can well imagine, to the rhythm of breathing. It might be regarded in the following way, holding the suggested relations in mind:
1. Inhalation........... Focus.......................... Life centralisation.
2. Interlude........... Point of Tension........... Initiation of causes.
3. Exhalation.......... Crisis........................... Production of effects.
4. Interlude........... Recognition................. Prelude to refocussing.
These phases of activity—both positive and negative—can be applied in all aspects of life and in all activities. You can experience them and institute them as a personality, and the entire effect of these phases will then be contained within the personality life of the three worlds; you are meanwhile in process of learning them as a soul and as a disciple, and for the remainder of your life they should establish the rhythm of your effort; later, upon the Path of Initiation, you will re-learn this same process on the highest possible turn of the spiral within the planetary rhythm—but that time is not yet.
As I give you this individual instruction, my brother, I would enjoin upon you the need to establish this rhythmic, cyclic "breath of consciousness." Ponder on this phrase and make this objective a matter of real importance to you until the time comes when you will work upon inner levels, free of the physical body; you will find the effort both interesting and also practical.
Let these four stages condition the pattern of your daily meditation. Let them also mark the pattern of your daily life, indicating the gathering in of the sources of supply for that life of service which is your aspiration (I refer at this point to the meditation process, practised daily). Let them mark also the carefully planned and silently implemented allocation [453] of such energies to the arranged duties of the day, and to the active outer task of breathing forth into the world of men that which it is your duty to contribute. Then let there be the final interlude of recognition.
The point I seek to emphasise to you is the need—imperative and permanent where the remainder of your life is concerned—for the interludes. These interludes are, for you, the growing times; they are essentially the "epochs for storage" (if I may use such an arresting and unusual phrase), and they are the "seed of samadhi." What is samadhi, from the initiate point of view and esoterically comprehended? Simply those interludes in the initiate's life of service wherein he withdraws all his forces into a "well of silence"—a well, full of the water of life. In this state of consciousness two definite activities transpire: Tension and Recognition. Without these interludes of abstraction, his work would slowly weaken as the tension, earlier initiated, weakened; his ability to attract and to hold others true to the vision would likewise slowly disappear, as his power to recognise became myopic. The initiate, therefore, as he works within the Ashram, withdraws at the needed times. As he inhales the life of the Hierarchy, and increasingly that of the Monad (which he gradually learns to do), and as he exhales the living essence into the "world of serving lives," he becomes steadily more and more dependent upon the "interludes" wherein both these phases of activity cease and he becomes immersed in Being and in Consciousness—the intrinsic parts of the animating Whole. I use this phrase "animating Whole" advisedly to indicate that the points of interlude are not related to form life at all, but to the life of Life itself.
Am I being too abstract with you, my brother? I believe not. As I look ahead into your future and sense the quality of your life, I know that the keynote of your inner programme should be ever the recognition of the essential demand of your soul for rhythmic interludes; your personality emphasis should be, therefore, upon this withdrawing. I refer not to the withdrawing from outer service but to an inner, constant, cyclic attitude of determined and planned abstraction.
[454]
If you will study your ray combinations, you will note that you have only one of your ray energies along the line of the first ray—that is the ray of the seventh type of energy. All your other rays are related to the great Second Ray of Love-Wisdom. This necessarily constitutes a problem until you remember that the seventh ray is the ray of interlude—an interlude and a ray which becomes active when the attractive, magnetic work of the building rays is ready to precipitate into the phenomenal world and bring about—under the Law of Ritual and of Divine Ceremonial—new phases of work. These are initiated in the silence of the process of abstraction, released when the interlude of tension has completed its work, and become effective when the interlude of recognition has made a new refocussing possible.
I am not going to indicate to you the lines along which your service, as a disciple in my Ashram, should proceed. You have already initiated certain activities, both in your personality life through your marriage and in the world through the order which you have attempted to establish. With that which you have started you must proceed; and you can regard these words either as a statement of fact, as a predictory announcement, or as a command from your own soul. But your success in both these departments of life will depend upon your effective use of "interludes." Only you can determine their timing, and this—to be successful—will require the application and the recognition of need, but also the recognition of unfolding spiritual opportunity.
As a beginning, and in order to help you to find the length of your cycles of inhalation and exhalation, I would suggest that you attempt to place one of the interludes at the time of the full moon each month, and the second interlude might come at the close of every three months of work, at the time of the third new moon. You will have to work this out for yourself, but in doing so you could establish a basic rhythm in your life which you would never regret. You could work along the following lines of rhythmic abstraction:
1. Twelve brief, abstract monthly interludes at the time of the twelve yearly full moons.
[455]
2. Four brief quarterly abstractions at the time of the four new moons, dependent upon the date of the initial, major interlude.
3. Two longer periods of interludes or of abstraction at the time of May and June full moons.
These points of inner abstraction, of interludes in your subjective life, can be carried on without interfering with your objective life of service, of obligation and of duty. I commend these three words to you also as three themes for meditation.
Last year I gave you the three words: Focus, Tension, Crisis. For this coming year I give you another three: Obligation, Service, Duty. For the year beginning September, I give you: Emotion, Intuition, Wisdom. You have, therefore, themes for three years' work in the meditation field and "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." When you have covered these nine themes for reflection, I would suggest that you start again, thus establishing a three year cycle in your process of rhythmic mental building.
Keep close to your group brothers. Seek to establish a contact—subjective and real—with F.C.D. who is so close to you in nature, though with more first ray strength. Whether you ever work for and with him on the outer plane is of no great matter. The need is for you to work with him on the inner planes, giving him what support you can, and receiving from him the strength that you need. Some time, during each morning meditation, I would request you to call him by name three times, and then to send out your heart's thoughts to him. A link would thereby be established which you would never regret.
And as for your relation to me, my brother—naught can change that. You are integrated into my Ashram; you have my confidence and trust; the love of your brothers in the outer group of the Ashram surrounds you at all times. Seek to get in touch with me every Full Moon period, and expect results.
My love and blessing rest upon you, and the service of my Ashram holds you.
[456]
August 1946
MY BROTHER:
I have for you today naught but a happy recognition. You have proceeded with your life task with patience, serenity and foresight. The dual life of a disciple (covering personality obligations and the chosen field of soul service) is being successfully attempted by you. Where the word "success" is used, I would remind you that the Master neither sees nor notices the small failures, the moments of distress or disturbance or the personality frictions which (from the angle of the observing disciple) seem to mar the picture. At intervals—rare at first but more frequent when the service rendered attains greater importance—the Master makes Himself aware of the general progress, the growth of the general structure of service which the disciple is creating and the extension of his light in the world. It amuses us at times to note that some disciples (particularly those trained in the earlier, personality-tainted groups) believe the Masters pry into their daily lives, know their petty faults and silly little failures and are fully aware of all they think and do. We wonder sometimes where they think the Masters find the time, and why They should be so interested in habits of thought and action and speech which the disciple is rapidly overcoming.
We are only interested in the good which any individual may be demonstrating; only the good reaches us, except in the case of an entire group where the group interplay, the group action and the group effect does affect the Ashram. The quality of the vibration which is felt when contacting you is of the nature of harmlessness and of goodwill to all men.
I am pleased that you are following along the line of your second ray energy, and are occupied with seventh ray activity; that means that, inspired by the sense of unity which is inherent in the soul, you are working on the physical plane (the point of expression for the seventh ray) and bringing spirit and matter together. Remember always that this ray which is again coming into cyclic manifestation is the one [457] that relates the new and incoming spiritual energy and the substance or matter aspect which will respond to it, utilise it and eventually give it due form. Know therefore clearly what it is you are attempting to do.
The main hierarchical need today (apart from its need for workers) is the forming everywhere of such groups as yours, the relating of group with group within the range of influence of that super group, the Hierarchy. Such groups are forming now in their thousands and are to be found in every land, and they will eventually blend and fuse together into one great movement of goodwill, which is spirit in actual expression. Aspirants everywhere, Arcane School students the world over, and my group of special workers such as yourself, must contact these groups, bringing them together on one point only, and that is Goodwill. Each group must necessarily be left free to proceed with its own destiny and mode of work. Unity is a necessary ideal and is the reverse side of Goodwill. Unitedly, when the right time comes, these groups must issue a great manifesto to the world—identical manifestos being issued in each country by all the groups who stand for world unity and goodwill. Thus they will make the word "goodwill" carry power throughout the planet, whilst the disciples and aspirants will, through their thought, make the word "unity" carry hidden power. Thus a vast band of men of goodwill will be working unitedly, yet independently, and there will be made available—in moments of world crisis—an organised, ready and world-wide public opinion of such strength and organisation that it cannot be ignored.
Your life pattern, my brother, is now established; seek not unduly to change it, but seek to make your home a centre of spiritual light, and seek to make your order so vibrant, so alive, that other groups may gain stimulation from it. You have therefore a full life's work, and in that all aspects of your nature will find full mode of expression. For disciples, only those tasks which call forth the full quota of innate effectiveness are of real value.
Should you find it possible, I would ask you to aid (to the utmost of your ability) your brother disciple, F.C.D., whose rays are closely allied with yours. He has thrown himself into [458] a supremely difficult task ... and his future work will not be easy. Help him; he is one of our agents who is worthy of all aid, and though temporarily in my Ashram, is a powerful worker in the Ashram of K.H.—his Master and mine. You can work also with power with J.W.K-P. whose rays, with one difference, are the same as yours.
In twenty-five years' time enough work will have been done by groups such as yours so that the pattern of unity in the world will be distinctly seen. The theory will be comprehended and much straight application will be made. Unity will become a definite world goal in a sense different to the present one. The words "The souls of men are one" will be recognised doctrine of every world faith. So go on with the work of unifying, my brother—in rain or shine.
I have asked myself what I could suggest to you for meditation. The vision you have, and I believe will never lose it. Definitely planned meditation is not so easy for you, and yet—in order to make the vision factual—meditation is a basic essential, for just as it remains eternally true that "as a man meditateth in his heart so is he," it is also equally true that as a man meditateth in his head so will his vision appear on Earth. A great safeguard for you exists in the elimination of all personality problems—yours or those of anyone else—from your current meditation project; that project you will have to set for yourself each year, and adhere to it. Its theme must grow out of the work of unifying—out of the work you have set yourself.
My brother, link humility with that task; seek not to link groups with your group, but recognise your group and all other similar groups as parts of a worldwide spiritual movement which (when it reaches momentum) results in unity for all. A super-organisation which emphasises unity is the last thing to be desired; a multiplicity of living organisms held loosely together by cooperation, constant communication and possessing identity of goal and of purpose is what the world needs today....
I assign you no specific meditation. Work out your own, but let it adhere to the general concept with which I have constantly presented all of you. You can (on your own and as [459] an accepted disciple) seek entrance into the life of the Ashram and thus contact me. This may take time, but the link is strong and elastic (ponder on that term) and adherence to the rules will ensure success.
My blessing rests upon you and on your aspiration.
To F. C. D.
August 1940
MY BROTHER:
The past few months have been extremely difficult for you, have they not. Twice I have myself felt the necessity to envelop you with shielding care and stand as a wall between you and circumstance. Are you conscious of these two contacts? They came at moments of extreme fatigue and tension. The future also holds for you much anxiety and of this I warn you, for to be prepared is—in the case of sensitive, imaginative disciples—a great deal of help. It is conditions more than circumstances which will cause the anxiety. Can you understand the distinction? Racial, national, and personal conditions meet in your life and create a perfect whirlpool of difficulty and a mixture of glamour and reality. Disciples work hard (as you have ever done) to render their relation to humanity inclusive and they struggle to bring about those conditions which will produce this desirable expanded consciousness. But they oft forget that this expansion of consciousness will not make them susceptible only to superhuman influences and inclusive of soul conditions, but must necessarily include also all intermediate stages of awareness as well as the power to include the reactions, mental and emotional conditions and the pain and suffering of bewildered and sorely tried humanity. It includes also its joys and aspirations.
The glamour of an extreme sensitivity is your major handicap, my brother, and definitely limits your usefulness. The solar plexus is wide open to all impressions. But you, as a soul, are quite indifferent and—as a soul—you suffer not at all. Of this I believe you are conscious. Spring free, therefore, [Page 460] upon the physical plane from all psychic impressions, via the solar plexus, and seek instead to register only those impressions and contacts which concern your service and deal with man's next definite step forward. Watch this process with care in your life. Your extreme psychic sensitivity and impressionability (of a very high order, I must admit, but nevertheless of a personality nature) must be overcome by a paralleling extreme spiritual sensitivity. This again I think you realise, and you know also that this spiritual tendency is accompanied in you by a corresponding powerful, physical and mental inertia. The potency of your astral activity depletes the other two points of the personality triangle. Your spiritual knowledge is so real that you will apprehend my meaning without further extended elucidation.
You are, my brother, upon the path of the Christ, and in preparation for treading this path of aiding and salvaging humanity, you have to learn (through intense feeling) the futility of emotion and feeling as a means of salvaging your brothers. You need to acquire that divine indifference which leaves the soul free to serve—untrammelled by personality reactions, for that is what all solar plexus conditions basically are.
Above, I gave you one important hint or imparted fact, as the case may be, when I said that the "potency of your astral activity depletes the other two points of the personality triangle." Your problem this life has been the same as that of A.A.B.—the transfer of energy from the solar plexus to the heart. The first stage of that process is, esoterically speaking, the discovery of how potent is the astral polarisation of all your personality forces; the entire focus of your life is upon the highest level of the astral plane. This in your case (not in that of A.A.B.) has led to the withdrawal of energy from the physical body (the etheric body), leading to physical debility and fatigue and also to a pronounced inability to "ground" yourself upon the physical plane. It has also brought about a considerable depletion or enervation of the Will aspect. I refer here specifically to the will aspect as it produces physical plane expression of directed soul activity as the intelligence (focussed in the mind) must condition it. I do not refer to[Page 461] the will in the sense of any fluctuation of your spiritual aspiration or failure to progress undeviatingly towards your goal. But it must surely be apparent to you that if the focus of all your energies inherent in the personality life and also those inpouring from the soul is the astral body, then there must certainly be a condition of attrition or of semi-starvation of the etheric body (determining the physical condition) and also of the mental body. This militates against the full manifestation of a very fine mental equipment. I am putting the problem quite clearly to you, because you are a tried and trusty disciple. Before you can take the initiation for which you are being prepared, there must be a change of life focus and a transfer of energy from the astral body into the mental body, and consequently from the solar plexus to the heart.
In this process, the group meditation should materially help and I advise you to follow it with real care. I advise also that you endeavour in the different circumstances of your life to insulate yourself (for selfless purpose) from too close a contact with those in distress. Aid them; love them; but do not identify yourself with them. I speak of an astral insulation and not of a refusal to meet and contact suffering humanity upon the physical plane. I refer to an attitude assumed and held by the soul and mind in regard to the astral body which enables you to express that divine indifference to feeling and to personal suffering as a result of that compassion which is the hallmark of the salvaging Elder Brothers of Humanity. Such is your basic problem.
Because of this, you will have to watch the earlier effects of this group meditation with care so that the solar plexus is not unduly stimulated, and thus your difficulty increased.
I wish also to give you a personal meditation which will, I believe, prove useful. It is more in the nature of an exercise and its results are based upon your ability to focus yourself in the soul consciousness and to hold that position undeviatingly. It is dependent also upon the power of sustained imagination which you may possess and is a good exercise in constructive creative work. It is also rendered more effective if aided by the will and as your mental body is on the first ray and as this work is largely the steady withdrawal of energy [462] to the mental body, you should find it relatively easy and possible to get the desired results.
1. Focus yourself in the head. Sound the OM as the soul and believe that contact has been made between soul-mind-brain.
2. Then see yourself as focussed esoterically upon the mental plane and (from the angle of the soul) exoterically in the brain.
3. Then inhale deeply, drawing the breath up from the solar plexus in the spine and seeing that upward moving breath carrying the solar plexus energy up the spine into the head, after passing it through the heart. Believe that this takes place.
4. In the interlude between inhalation and exhalation dedicate the energy thus withdrawn by the soul, believing in its consequent and subsequent transmutation. (I would remind you that transmutation is the changing of one vibration and one vibratory activity into another and higher one.)
5. During exhalation—in which the breath is carried on the OM sounded inaudibly—breathe the solar plexus energy, now focussed in the head, to the throat centre. This should produce increased creative output for humanity.
6. In the following interlude, after exhalation, go over in your mind (pictorially) as a sort of recapitulation, what you have done.
OM. OM. OM.
Repeat this exercise three times and do this transference exercise three times a day. Do not look for results. A year's steady work with a detached attitude as to these results will be needed before you yourself will recognise difference of reaction and lessened emotional activities.
This exercise, coupled to the group meditation, will (as you will have undoubtedly noted) produce in the long run the linking up of the three centres above the diaphragm—the heart, the head and the throat. The exercise just given[463] must be done before the group meditation as it is of the nature of a clearing exercise. If done properly, it will hasten the results of the group meditation for it will clear the solar plexus of undesirable emotional force and leave "room for reception," as the process is sometimes technically called. True love will then take the place of emotion, and compassion will be substituted for pity; understanding will take the place of apprehension of suffering.
Disciples are apt often to think that the injunction to identify themselves with other people must involve complete identification with all their experiences, moods and reactions. It does not. It should not. It involves identification (through the intuition) with underlying soul purpose and a consequent ability to interpret and explain the present. Ponder on this, my beloved brother.
August 1942
1. You have given all you had to give. Now take it back enriched. Then give again.
2. Peace is to you the clearest light of all. The lessons of the dark have likewise been revealed. Pass out between the two.
3. The best is yet to be. Hold thou to Me.
4. The bridge of light is firmly built and on it you can move this way or that, but always on the Way.
5. The sorrows of the Cross of Man have weighted thee down but not submerged or blotted out the light. The joy of resurrection lies ahead.
6. Love is thy note and wisdom is thy guide. You need naught else but fire.
September 1943
MY BROTHER AND MY CO-WORKER:
I am not telling your co-disciples whether you are on this side of the separating veil or not. I am not informing them whether you have crossed the "bridge of light," to which I referred in my last communication to you. You need their[464] protective love, no matter whether you are here or there; the turmoil on the other side is so great—as great as the turmoil on the physical plane. Whether you are in the body or out of the body, you are therefore peculiarly vulnerable, because, my brother (as I have told you oft during the past years), your intense sensitivity has complicated your life problem. Your karma ... holds you back from that complete freedom and liberation which you deeply desire. Only those who have achieved freedom can return to that group with immunity and helpfulness in their hands—the group from which they have been freed.
I have for you a suggestion. I will not call it an order, for no Master ever gives commands, and in any case you belong to the Ashram of K.H. and will have received your instructions direct from Him. He feels as I do, that in the pressure and anxiety and in your psychic participation in the fate of your country and in your sensitive reaction to racial strain, the import of His conversation with you a year ago may not have registered adequately. It has been difficult for you and well-nigh impossible to concentrate on planning. I am therefore going to summarise for you what He then said. The group protection accorded you (greater than perhaps you realise) enables me to reach you more easily at this time than can any other member of the Hierarchy. I can find and reach you with a minimum expenditure of force.
Your Master, K.H., asked you at that time if you were ready to begin work in preparation for a definite assignment upon the Path of World Saviours. Assignment after assignment in connection with groups, nations, races and increasingly large units is ever the mode of developing a world Saviour until the time comes when he can make a world impact and achieve a measure of world salvaging. Many times in the past, I have pointed out to you that you were on that most difficult path of service. K.H. desired to find out if you were prepared to accept your first major assignment upon that Way. When you assented and told Him that you would do what you could but that you had no inner confidence in yourself, owing to the pressures of the time which appeared to you to have a definitely disintegrating effect on your [465] vehicles, He reassured you and told you that the potent inner unfoldment of your love nature and your complete decentralisation were a vital protection. He also informed you that—at the stage of spiritual development which you had attained—the aura of His Ashram and the aura of mine would act as a shield, and that the resources of both Ashrams were behind you. This, my brother, you know well, and to this fused efficiency you can testify....
I have said enough here to enable you again to resume your active position as a pledged initiate-disciple (a position which your co-disciples have ever recognised as yours), and I have shown you definitely how valuable has been to you the last immediate experience.... Though you are a trained disciple of K.H., you are still working in my Ashram, as I remain in close touch with world affairs in relation to their immediate working out, whilst K.H., being a Chohan, is more active in the handling of the deeper incentives and purposes, and of those matters which will not materialise until such time as the work done by me, and others associated with the Great White Lodge and of like rank and of lesser rank, is completed or at least well on the way to fruition.
The work assigned to you, my beloved brother, will be work of profoundest difficulty. You will meet with rebuff from those you seek to help and ... find very little understanding; you will meet with encouragement and assistance from the enlightened among the New Group of World Servers, and this will make your work possible but it will also greatly handicap you...
Are you big enough for this inadequately outlined task, my brother? Is your stamina, your inner spiritual orientation and your fixed psychic determination adequate to the undertaking? Can you do it with your present psychic equipment, or must you build new bodies for integration, use and service? The decision rests with you, for those who tread the Way of a World Saviour are left peculiarly free (owing to certain difficulties in time and space within the planetary life) and must work as they will, with what they choose to offer and with a trained understanding of their task.
Such was the gist of your interview with your Master. [466] You can now go forth from where you are with the endorsement of your Master, with the aid and backing of myself and of A.A.B. and, at all times, the protective aura of K.H.; and—with reverence I would call your attention to this—an aspect of the aura of the Christ is incorporated in that lesser aura.
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