84. ALICE BAILEY - Discipleship in the New Age,Vol. II - 25. SECTION FOUR - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - PART 4

SECTION FOUR - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO 

DISCIPLES - PART 4

You are as yet a comparatively young man. The crux of your whole problem is to be found in the shift which you[513] are supposed to make this incarnation from the minor ray, the sixth Ray of Devotion, to a major ray, the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. When you have accomplished this, you will take initiation. The task is however a stupendous one because as an accepted disciple in the technical sense of the word, the characteristics of the sixth ray—owing to your having a sixth ray astral body—are very pronounced and dominant. This condition is aggravated (if I might so express it) by your having a first ray personality. When, as in your case, the polarisation is in the astral body and so the energy of power pours in, the situation becomes acute, which is to be expected. Fortunately, disciples are driven by intensity and devotion to take the needed steps which will bring release and a consequent moving forward, and the incarnation wherein they do this is always peculiarly circumstanced, subjectively at least, even if the exoteric life is of no major interest. This is not so with you. In your case the following conditions embody your problem and hence your opportunity:

1. The intense difficulty of shifting from one ray to another ray. The aspiration of your sixth ray astral body must be lifted on to the plane of knowledge. The power of sense realisation must become divine wisdom through surety. Vision must give place to intuitive focussed perception—a very different thing, my friend.

2. You were born in the sign Gemini which again presents its own peculiar problems. You vibrate between the pairs of opposites in a very pronounced and definite manner—as does A.A.B. The point of balance and of equilibrium is ever a difficult one for the disciple to achieve in this sign.

3. Your first ray personality works through a physical body which is on the same ray so that a triple first ray energy again complicates your life theme because all these forces are concentrated in the lower nature. This could lead (in the case of a pledged disciple) to a powerful and distracting spiritual ambition which in a group leader—such as you are—would be a detriment to the group. Where the astral body is on the sixth ray [514] and devotion is dominant, the glamour of devotion can veil the reality of any existent ambition.

4. The present world conflict enhances your problem and makes the whole life cycle one of the utmost pain yet one of prime importance.

There are, my brother, many lives of such a negligible nature that they warrant no comment. Then may come a life when the attention of the soul, of the Master and of the group upon the physical plane are focussed upon the struggling disciple, thus bringing intensification of his situation and forcing him to "struggle into the light of day," watched by those who understand and by those who do not understand. This causes much suffering to the sensitive worker. All this applies to you. You hate publicity and yet much that you do courts it. You are sensitively humble and yet can be trapped and misled sometimes by personality pride; you love deeply and sincerely but are apt to express this through devotion instead of through wise identification.

I have for you, however, no real concern. I tell you that you need haste in discarding impediments upon the Way but am assured, through study of your soul contact, that you will not be hindered.

I ask myself what I can do for you and so aid the process of transmutation and release through right meditation. I would suggest the following experiment in subjective attitudes. That, in the last analysis, is a definition of meditation. The end of all meditation is concerned with:

1. The attitude of the personality to the soul.

This is self-control.

2. The attitude of integrated man to humanity.

This is service.

3. The attitude of the disciple to the Hierarchy.

This is intuitional sensitivity.

4. The attitude of the hierarchical worker to the Plan.

This is selection of activity.

Ponder on these points. particularly the third which concerns [515] aptly your sensitive reactions to Us. This reaction will be felt in your soul as a complete surrender in time and space; in the personality it will register either as a glamour or a purificatory process, and in the group as a force, having either a good or a bad effect, according to its colouring by the higher or the lower nature and the activity it will succeed in evoking when it impinges upon the personnel of the group.

The following exercise can be done four times and repeated three times each day:

1. Stand with your arms outspread in the symbol of the Cross.

2. Take six long slow breaths, thus establishing a rhythm.

3. Then take one long breath and gather up by the power of imagination the energy of the solar plexus. Then carry it along the spine and upward to the head, not to the heart as is usually the case.

4. Focus the dedicated aspiration and emotional energy in "the secret place" and then sound the OM. Breathe it down into the throat centre.

This can be regarded as an act of breathing in and breathing out and constitutes an activity carried forward on one breath with an interlude of conscious focussing. You will notice that, in combination with the group meditation, you will be working actively upon the solar plexus, the head, the heart and the throat. It will require careful watching of process, results in the centres and consequent activity.

Let me be ambitious for you, my brother of long standing. That I am. I have watched you with loving understanding for a very long cycle. My love ends not and my care of you is all-surrounding.

August 1942

1. One there has been. The second lies ahead—not far ahead. Prepare.

2. The simplicity of the soul opens the Way to Shamballa.

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3. Be simple, clear as day and full of love.

4. A glamour settles down because a separating wall was built on false foundations. Destroy this wall and let the glory in.

5. Be not so troubled, brother. Close to my heart you stand and close to that of Morya. Talk to F.B., for you and he and I are close, and close to Morya.

6. Your field of service needs a certain note of quality. Learn to reject and thus discriminate the best.

September 1943

MY CO-DISCIPLE:

My relation to you is slightly different to that which I face when approaching the bulk of the members of my Ashram; you belong, as does F.B., to the Ashram of the Master Morya. You have been assigned to my Ashram on account of the nature of the vibratory activity of your astral body, and because—owing to your own definite soul choice—you are shifting on to the second ray of love-wisdom. You might well ask, therefore, how it happens that your orientation has been towards the Master M. and that you have been affiliated with His Ashram. The reason is to be found in the fact that your personality, your mental nature and your physical body are all upon the first ray, and that consequently the power of your intelligent and focussed mind has driven you into the aura of the leading first ray Ashram, and has held you there. Closer participation was not possible, owing to your sixth ray soul, whose natural and predetermined destiny was to fuse its secondary energy with the energy of the second ray, thus opening the door for you into a second ray Ashram. It was felt, therefore, that I (through the medium of my Ashram) could provide those conditions which would facilitate this transition and at the same time prepare you for the next great spiritual expansion of consciousness—the initiation of which you know. This will mark the consummation of this major life cycle.

As you know, and as I have before pointed out, you have a profound task of balancing to carry out, owing to the ray[517] energies which at this time condition your life. Three aspects of the first ray and two aspects of the sixth intensify each other. Were you not the advanced disciple which you are, they would be liable to produce a life and karmic expression of a fanatical self-will. To this difficult situation of balancing must be added the difficulties always entailed in a transitional life wherein a major transfer must be effected. To all this again must be added the present world condition, wherein the Shamballa force is abroad and potently affecting those natures which have a preponderance of first ray aptitudes. You have thus no easy time, my brother. This you realise, and I too know it, and stand by.

It was for this reason that I have urged you for some years to concentrate upon the book "The Way into Shamballa," knowing that an intelligent and loving consideration of the problem would do much to bring your first ray personality nature into line with the purposes of your second ray soul, and thus facilitate the transfer of your egoic consciousness off the sixth ray of devotion on to the second ray of love-wisdom. The first and the second rays work closely together; love and will are closely identified on the higher levels of consciousness and service; the two basic energies in reality constitute one great expression of divine planning and purpose.

It is in this connection too that your relation to F.B. and A.A.B. is no idle or temporary matter, but one of real import to all of you. This A.A.B. has recognised. Several forces— inherent in your own nature or engineered and manipulated by the ignorant or the less advanced upon the Path—have endeavoured to interfere and prevent the desired relationship. The matter is, however, entirely in your own hands and the amount of contact between the three of you is your personal matter, for there is no impediment upon the side of the other two. The three of you together could do potent work, and the need of the Ashram at this time for workers is great—workers who are, as H.P.B. has put it, "as the fingers of one hand."

I would remind you that the potency of disciples and initiates is out of all proportion greater than that of a similar[518] number of aspirants. The interplay of loving understanding and of fused wills produces an exceedingly potent reservoir of energy. This is a point which all disciples should study and upon which they can count as they work together in united effort in any Ashram.

As I study you, my brother and my friend, and as I look ahead at your life of service and of right intention, one word stands out in my consciousness for you. To it, I referred in the six statements which I earlier gave you. That word is:simplicity. I stated in that earlier writing that the simplicity of the soul opens the way into Shamballa. That was and is an essential key statement for you. Those upon the second ray fall (as you know) into two groups, generally speaking; there are, naturally, numerous exceptions. Souls on the wisdom aspect of the second ray go to Shamballa and join the great Council in some capacity or another. Such a one was the Buddha. Those on the love aspect of the second ray tread one or other of the various paths, primarily that of the World Saviours; They become the divine Psychologists and World Teachers. The Christ combined in Himself all these three great traits.

Those in this second group of souls upon the second ray likewise fall into two groups: They follow the way of specialised detail and of a comprehensive inclusiveness, and are the outstanding occultists; the other group is distinguished by pure love. Of the group which finds its way into Shamballa a developed simplicity will be found to govern all relations.

Simplicity and unity are related; simplicity is one-pointedness of outlook, free from glamour and the intricacies of the thoughtform-making mind; simplicity is clarity of purpose and steadfastness in intention and in effort, untrammelled by questioning and devious introspection; simplicity leads to simple loving, asking nothing in return; simplicity leads to silence—not silence as an escape mechanism, but as an "occult retention of speech."

For you, simplicity is a major essential practice in this next cycle of your life, but you will have to decide for yourself[519] what it means for you, and I shall be interested to note your reaction to this word and practice and the changes it may make in your life and thinking. Simplicity connotes the blueprint which "substands" the outer structure of creation, of living, of loving and of service, and this is true of a solar system, a planet, humanity or the individual. It consequently has its immediate application to your own requirements and your mode of approach to life and to people. This loving simplicity—free from complicated thinking, from mystery and from selfish introspection—should provide the theme for your meditation work until I next communicate with you. To this I would add an increased concentration upon the preparation of the book which I seek to have you write and to complete.

You see, my brother, it is a book which will take much intuition and spiritual perception to write, and it can only be written by someone who has been trained in an Ashram. The theme of Shamballa is new, and little is yet known about it, its way of life and its governing laws. Only initiate-disciples can get a glimpse of some of the more exoteric significances, whilst the inner meaning must be drawn forth by you in deep and concentrated meditation and by the determined use of the will. There is no one who can aid you in preparing this book except some group brother or someone working consciously in an Ashram. You will look in vain for cooperation and help among those you seek to aid and among the orthodox and theological esotericist. Some key thoughts I can here give to you, and if you use them as the theme of your meditation, light upon the subject may break forth:

1. Shamballa is the place of purpose. It is a purpose which cannot be understood until the Plan is followed. Herein lies a clue.

2. Shamballa is not a Way, but a major centre of related states and a relatively static energy—energy held ready for creative purposes by the focussed intention of the Great Council, acting under the directing eye of the Lord of the World.

[520]

3. Shamballa is the major point of tension upon the planet. It is a tension that expresses loving intelligent will, free from all self-will or mental bias.

4. Shamballa is the major receptive agent upon the planet, from the angle of solar inflow, but at the same time it is the main distributing point of energy, from the angle of the kingdoms in nature, including the fifth kingdom. From the point of tension the life pattern of the planetary Logos and His will become embodied and finally matured through the processes of evolution.

5. Shamballa receives energy from various solar and extra-solar Entities or centres of emphatic and energetic life; i.e., from Venus, from the Central Spiritual Sun, from the current conditioning constellation through which our sun may be passing, from the Great Bear and other cosmic centres. Sirius, so important a factor in the spiritual life of the planet, brings its energies to bear direct upon the Hierarchy, and energy from Sirius does not normally enter our planetary life via Shamballa.

6. Shamballa is the head centre, speaking symbolically, of our planetary Life, focussing will, love and intelligence in one great and fundamental Intention and holding that focussed point throughout the entire life cycle of a planet. This great Intention embodies current purpose and expresses itself through the medium of the Plan.

These statements may be somewhat familiar to you, but they could provide the six seed thoughts for your meditative work during the coming year. Will you thus consider them? Out of the work which you will accomplish thus in meditation (using the heart centre as a balance for the head) you will greatly enrich the proposed book.

This coming period of deep reflection upon Shamballa, entailing as it will the entire problem of the Will (in its various aspects), of purpose as it works out in the planet, and of will as it conditions the human being, will bring to the fore in your consciousness the various relations existing between the differing aspects of the will: the relation of your individual self-will to the loving plan of the soul, of that will to [521] the divine Will, of your spiritual will to the group will, of the group will to the Hierarchy, and of the hierarchical will to that of Shamballa. Such are some of the ideas which can govern your spiritual thinking, reflection and meditation until you again hear from me. You will find all these to be intensely practical considerations. The question of motive will immediately enter in, for motive underlies will in a most curious manner, and motive "substands" purpose. Therefore, your personality motives in life and service will have to come under review, and their relation to soul motive. The result of this entire process of thinking will be the subjugation of your motives to soul motive, and again, therefore, we shall have the simplification of your life and the opening up of a wider vision into Shamballa. Shamballa and simplicity, will and motive, will become the directing currents of thought which will sweep you on your way, closer to my Ashram, nearer to my heart (and here I am speaking both lovingly and technically), and nearer and closer to humanity.

November 1944

MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

What I have to say to you today hinges upon one single question: Are you ready to pay the price which the taking of the next initiation entails? All accepted disciples are preparing for initiation. All are therefore under test. You know that you are preparing for initiation; you know which initiation it is. It is because of this preparatory period that the past three years have seen you seriously tested, and tested in every aspect of your nature. There is, nevertheless, little that I have been able to do for you because loneliness is one of the assets and also aspects of this work of preparation. Disciples ever take initiations alone, even when preparing for and taking group initiation. This is one of the paradoxes of the occult teaching which is not at all easily understood. It sounds entirely contradictory but is not so at all. It has not been easy to reach you either, because you have taken refuge from the tests in the work of your own group, rather than in the Ashram. In your own group you have sought forgetfulness [522] and have not sought the protection and the love of your ashramic group. That is your privilege and your inalienable right. I would like, however, to point out to you that it is safer and wiser to take refuge in both the higher and the lower places of service, and to do this simultaneously. One place safeguards you as a soul and the other as a personality.

The call of Shamballa, the call of my Ashram, and the call of your own exoteric group (mark those words, my brother) have sounded forth in your ears and you have been bewildered; you have forgotten perhaps that if you stand at the midway point (which is my Ashram) you have immediate access to both "points of call." I have here given you an important hint and want you to endeavour to grasp its significance.

You have been drastically tested in your physical vehicle, and that is hard, my brother, because it is difficult to preserve one's equanimity and one's balance under those circumstances. You need, however, to understand better than you do the "distortions" for which physical sickness is responsible, and thus learn more wisely to discount yourself and to pay less attention to the glamours of the lower self. This would simplify your life, and I told you earlier that simplification was a needed attribute for you. You have also been sorely tested in the emotional nature; surely, my beloved brother, you know by this time that when a definite transition is being made by the soul—as is the case where you are concerned—from one ray to another, that abnormal testing is automatically inevitable? This will be particularly the case when a disciple is moving on to the second ray, owing to its close relationship with the emotional-intuitive nature, and when also you have—as you know—three first ray controls in your personality equipment.

This necessarily engenders a serious problem. You have also been cruelly tested in your mental nature by the war and through your intense grasp of human pain, as well as by your understanding of psychological reactions. These have served to enhance your problem, and your entire emotional and mental reaction to war and its happenings has well-nigh crippled your essential (not your apparent) usefulness. You [523] have, within yourself, questioned the foundations of all things, and life has been most complicated for you—physically, emotionally and mentally. Owing to the dominance of the first ray in your equipment, you have successfully withdrawn yourself from your group brothers; you have considered that they had naught to give you, and you realised that—feeling this way—you had naught for them. Detachment is the path of least resistance for a first ray nature, and (if you will permit me to say so and will accept this statement) indicates definitely the dominance at this time of personality reactions. Your second ray soul does not sanction detachment, and hence the conflict being waged within your consciousness.

Yet, my brother and my comrade, the deep and lasting love of two of your group brothers has steadily protected you during this time of trial and of difficulty, as has the love of A.A.B. She asks me not to tell you this, indeed she begs me not to do so, for she is sensitive interiorly to all that affects you. It is, however, right that you should know.

So, brother of mine, we come back to the question of the reason for all this harshness in life and to the initiation for which you are preparing. In connection with this I would say: Get back to the "midway point" and to the protecting love of the Ashram. Then the strength of Shamballa to which you so easily respond can safely pour in; then, too, will come the wisdom which will enable you to render better service to the world. See therefore how simple is the message which I have for you at this time, and remember that I told you last year that simplicity held for you the key to all success. You are not truly successful just at present. Simplicity does not rule.

Relinquish the thoughtforms which seem at this time to stand between you and the Ashram. You will know what these are if you will take three days of quiet retirement and during that time refuse to think about your work, about your groups, their personnel or about yourself and your past activities, as well as about your group brothers. Aim simply to achieve a point of orientation towards me and the Ashram; endeavour to respond consciously to hierarchical impression, [524] shutting out (at least for those three days) every kind of reaction to human happenings. Aim at a point of tension from which new endeavour and new enterprise can become possible. Then rededicate yourself to the service of humanity; reconsecrate yourself to cooperation with the Hierarchy, and regain your early enthusiasm in relation to Us and Our work. Then again resume your world contacts. There will be three letters which you will find it necessary to write if these days are productive of renewed contact with hierarchical force. You will know to whom these letters should go and what they will state.

Take proper medical help, brother of mine. Take time to get the physical vehicle in better condition. The reflex action of the body upon the emotional nature and upon the mind is great. As a psychologist you know this, but fail to apply to yourself what you so helpfully apply to others. Have confidence in my belief and trust in you, and let the remaining years of your life be triumphant in love; let them be negative to criticism; all your group brothers are handling problems equal in difficulty to yours; proffer rich cooperation to them and to the Hierarchy. My love and blessing is ever yours, and this you know.

August 1946

MY BELOVED BROTHER:

I would like to start my communication to you with a clear and definite statement: You are in process of taking some of the final tests which precede the taking of the second initiation. For that reason, I feel the need of writing to you with clarity, of bringing you some measure of comfort and of strength, and of indicating certain steps which—if you will take them—may hasten the process.

Yet I feel very great difficulty in approaching you, though not for the usual reasons. Oft a Master cannot at some particular time reach a disciple because he is surrounded with too much activity, or with activities of the wrong kind; in some cases, the thought-life of the disciple has created so many thoughtforms that temporarily he cannot be reached; [525] or again, he is absorbed in some form of service which he deems essential and which looms larger in his consciousness than the work of the Ashram with which he is affiliated. These, however, are not the things which hinder an easy contact with you. What do hinder are the results in your consciousness, at this particular stage, of the tests of the initiation themselves. It is the emotional glamour which has engulfed you, and freedom from glamour has to be demonstrated at the second initiation; it is the intense awareness you experience, at this time, of yourself—the central factor. This again is a necessary but distressing prelude to this initiation. This glamour comes between you and me. The self-awareness comes also between you and the Ashram, as well as between you and the group which you have gathered around you upon the physical plane.

Having read this far, will you, brother of mine, continue? There is some probability that you will not. You may take the position (I say not you will) that you repudiate as false all relations to glamour. You may declare that it touches you not, which assertion itself would indicate that it does. Your deeply seated sense of spiritual superiority to your group (an attitude which is sadly affecting them) may prevent your listening to me, your friend and brother for many years—nay, lives. I would, however, ask you to read what I have to say; perchance I may throw light upon your problems and aid you to take the initiation which was your destined goal this life, but which you may yourself postpone until the next. For this postponement there is no need, if you grasp the significance of what is happening in your life at present.

The second initiation is a profoundly difficult one to take. For those upon the first or second rays of aspect it is probably the most difficult of them all. The astral nature is deeply self-centred, and this the inflow of soul energy in the initiatory period intensifies; it is endowed with acute emotionalism and swift response to glamour. Where there is so much first ray energy to be found (as in your case) there will be a strong conviction of destiny, a pronounced sense of power, and the feeling that you can see through people—from a superior position—so that their faults and failures [526] and their little human failings loom large in your consciousness.

You are at this time in a state of intensely irritable sensitivity to all and sundry; you are overwhelmed by acute glamour. All that is in you of a first ray quality is drawn to the surface and conditioning all your contacts. Your soul ray of outgoing love is not much seen, and there is little love shown by you to your brothers in the Ashram or to the members of your own group.

You may here ask me at this point how I know this to be so and why I emphasise to you this knowledge. You have been taught by me that the Masters concern not Themselves with the personality details of a disciple's life expression; therefore, why do I concern myself with what is happening to you? Those are just questions and I will answer them.

I concern myself with your problems because you are taking the second initiation and—because of its intense difficulty—I have watched over you for the past four years with more than usual care. I know the inner turmoil, the self-recriminations and the self-rationalisings, the deep subjective discontent, the longing to be free, and the atmosphere of acute suffering in which you live. Your spiritual morale is not high because your solar plexus is wide open—responsive to every astral suggestion, disturbed by world pain as well as by your own, in a state of irritation and constant inner explosion over your brothers in the Ashram and over the members of your own group. Many of the latter are also of an emotional type, for forget not, my brother, we draw to ourselves those who respond to our major quality at any given time and—at this time—yours is emotional.

I would remind you that the emotion to which I refer in connection with you is not that of the ordinary person. You are confronted with the emotion which the second initiation stirs up. This is a very different matter. You should realise, therefore, that my rating of you is high. It is a spiritual rating and has nothing to do with the rating of yourself behind which you hide your hurt and suffering soul and which you seem to impose upon your students everywhere. My rating is true, and you will weather these stormy waters and arrive in [527] the quiet land of realities, free from all emotion, yet at the same time, full of unimpeded love. This is the reward of perseverance throughout the tests and trials of the second initiation.

What I am seeking to do is to help, to indicate the nature of the tests and point out to you the reason why these tests and trials have overtaken you. Everything may seem to fail you—your knowledge of psychology, your groups of students, your friends and your brothers in the Ashram. Think not that this indicates the fourth initiation, the Crucifixion. That initiation has to be faced clear-eyed, free from glamour, with a heart full of love and a mind released from all criticism. For this, the second initiation prepares the disciple. Today, you know you are full of emotion and that it almost sweeps you off your feet at times; you know you are more prone to criticism than not; and you know that under the influence of glamour you oft wield the weapon of speech in a destructive manner and not constructively; you know that—deep within yourself—you are not satisfied with the work you do or the words you write.

The book you have lately published I have psychometrised and find it to be sixth ray in nature; it will prove most helpful to probationary disciples, and they need such help; it will not help disciples, for it deals with that which they know well. The call went out to you from the Ashram to write upon the theme of Shamballa, the centre where the will of God is known and from whence the love of God flows forth. This you rejected, owing to the emotional turmoil in which you found yourself. Yet I had a purpose and a reason in suggesting this theme. It was not just to have a book which would be of service to disciples, but because it was essential—as part of the pre-initiation tests for you—to bring in some of the Shamballa force to your consciousness. It was the impact of this Shamballa force (which you can touch and to which you can intelligently respond) which was the main factor in bringing to the surface all the latent emotion and all the glamour which are today enveloping you. As you considered the theme of Shamballa (and later rejected my suggestion to write upon it) you brought yourself [528] in contact with the energy emanating from Shamballa. Yet, my brother, had you occupied yourself with my suggestion and dealt with the theme The Way into Shamballa much of that Shamballa force would have been transmuted along constructive lines and creative endeavour, and your condition would not be what it is today.

You may well ask here: If all this is so, what then shall I do? Have I failed in the tests for initiation? What do you suggest?

Most certainly you have not failed. You are at the climax or peak of the testing period. The only point to be determined is: Can you overcome in this life and free yourself from astral control, or will the tests be prolonged until next life?

These are questions which only you can answer. In order to answer them you should enter into a cycle of intense quiet and—if possible—of peaceful normality. Can you free yourself for two years, my brother, and at the end stand free? You would be well advised to do this; you should relinquish your groups and stand alone. At present you are not working along new age lines, for your work is along the old lines—of superior teachers, gathering their groups around them, of mystery where there is no mystery, because there is no mystery in esoteric teaching, and this is a lesson which you sorely need to learn, and of criticism (openly critical) of the student, which is sadly lacking in love. No new age teacher gathers a group around himself, exacting their loyalty and obedience, nor does he shut the door to other aspects of truth, as you have done. He offers the teaching, and regards himself as only a student.

So I would urge you to give up your group for two or three years (you can later resume it and with power) and study the handling of energy for yourself—free from emotion, desire for recognition, and in response to human need. I would also urge upon you a meditation, built around the words:

1. Occult Obedience.

2. Occult Meditation.

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You would profit greatly. Seek to find me and walk with me in my Ashram, where your soul ray will be fostered into greater expression and your personality rays will retire into the background. If you have the strength to do this you will—at the close of the period of self-imposed discipline—enter into a cycle of very great usefulness. I foresaw this cycle of useful work when I first contacted you. There is still time for this emergence into wider world service. It need not be postponed until next life.

You have suffered much, my brother, and have few to whom you can go. My love and my blessing are around you always and I have held you specially close lately during these difficult post-war days. Disciples such as you react not only to their own tests and problems, but also to those of suffering humanity. You will find me near when you need me.

NOTE: This disciple chose to withdraw from the Tibetan's group and, until the close of his life in 1953, carried on his own established line of service.

To L. F. U.

August 1940

BROTHER OF MINE:

I scarce know what to say to you for the body is tired, the mind is bewildered, the emotional nature is striving to assert itself whilst the soul is pouring in a stimulating energy which is responsible for a very definite crisis in your life. It is of interest to me to know how many members of the group are now being tested—a thing which was foreseen by me but refused consideration by several of you. Several members of the group are undergoing the painful test of war, with its inevitable nervous effects upon the constitution, its strain upon the astral body as well as the physical, and the reactions to noise, suspense on behalf of others and the general psychic atmosphere in which they are forced to dwell. P.D.W., D.E.I., and L.D.O. are thus situated and the test is great.

You, my brother, and W.O.I. are likewise being tested in [530] the world of ideas, and you particularly are faced with an acute problem in discrimination.

Earlier—years ago—I gave you three words which were to be the keynotes of your life—Love, Fearlessness and Understanding. The first two have preoccupied you much. You have worked hard to express love and have materially sweetened and broadened your nature. As a result you are aware today, as never before, how lack of love betrayed you and brought untold suffering to three people in your life. This is known only to you. Fearlessness is now a glamour in your mind for your sixth ray brain and astral body have suddenly betrayed you. Your earlier freedom from glamour led to carelessness—and as you well know we are oft betrayed at the point where we judged ourselves the strongest. Nevertheless, the past few years have seen real progress, pronounced liberation and true development.

Have you, my brother, reached your high water mark for this life? Can you go further still along the Way? That is your problem. It will be solved and wisely determined and you will enter upon a new cycle of spiritual life if understanding and a search for meaning begins to parallel your reaction to love and fearlessness.

Your understanding is not deep enough. That which is academic and the result of reading, listening, and of your response to the work of the Arcane School is apt to take the place of true understanding. True understanding involves identification with humanity.

Your theories, your ideals, your fixed beliefs come between you and humanity as a whole, and the good of the form side of life looms unduly large in your attitude to service. You are, under the glamour of idealism, apt to sacrifice the spirit of love in order to preserve the form of your ideal. Ponder on this for it is basic in its teaching value for you if you grasp rightly the implications. May I ask you to reflect upon the esoteric significance of a truth which as yet seems to you most questionable: Ideals must go as they are now formulated because we are entering into a new age wherein all things will become new. They can safely be relinquished when their place is taken by a real soul love for humanity—[531] inclusive, sane and practical. Ideals are formulations by the human mind. The Hierarchy has no ideals. The Hierarchy is simply the channel for pure love and where love exists there is no danger of harshness, of cruelty, of misunderstanding, of evasion of facts or of harmfulness. Much also that many regard as harmless is definitely harmful in its general effects. Ideals, as usually held, feed pride, lead to stubbornness, and engender a separative superiority; they produce impractical attitudes and negative activities. The one who thus holds them frequently serves only in the limited field, conditioned by his chosen work and coloured by his idealism. He excludes the Whole and thinks in terms of the past and as he wants to think. There is no real understanding of an opposing idealism and often no real attempt to comprehend its basis. His emphasis upon his own ideals (in his own consciousness even when not imposed on others) prevents understanding, and he is so busy upholding them and defending them (oft again to himself) and being conditioned by them that the larger human issues escape his attention. He settles down within the limits of his own beliefs. This makes him immediately a theologian and his usefulness then rapidly evaporates, except in the intimate circle of his fellow idealists. As time goes on, crystallisation takes place. A "crystal barrier" is set up between the personality and the soul. The soul is seen but its influence is insulated. But—because there is a vision of the soul still persisting—the disciple is deeply dissatisfied. The crystallisation eventually affects all aspects of the nature. Emotions settle into "grooves of crystal"; the mind becomes set and brittle. The physical body crystallises also and gets old rapidly because there is no free flow of life.

One thing only will prevent this happening: Loving understanding and a consequent sacrifice of the life to humanityas a whole. The greatest good of the greatest number becomes his life theme and to this the whole man is subordinated.

Can you grasp this vision and let everything go? Only two types of ray energy are expressing themselves through your lower nature: intellect and idealism. Ponder a little on the effects of this unbalanced condition and consider what it [532] will engender. Be not satisfied with your mental activity and your dedicated idealism. Reach beyond them to the soul whose nature is love and whose identification is with humanity and not with a school of thought or a group of ideals.

You stand at the parting of the ways, my brother. Will you come on to renewed service, to new ideals, and to a fresh cycle of creative living? Or will you settle down into a crystallised condition and to an ardent struggle to become creative and to express ideals which are perhaps already superseded in order to make room for higher and better ones. Thus you might stand still within the aura of that which is old and make no further progress, waking up later to the realisation that creative living is a spontaneous happening and that your ideals have been superseded by greater and more spiritual ones.

I give you no personal meditation. The one assigned to the group in the group instruction is peculiarly adapted to bring about in you the needed changes, provided you follow the meditation with regularity.

I would, however, ask you to take two points of reflection every day when it suits you best and for your reflective theme I would suggest "Understanding of the New Age Ideals," remembering that the new ideals concern the life and not the form.

My blessing rests ever on you for I have much for you to do. I would remind you that in your last instruction I asked you if you were strong enough to participate in the world distress with no barriers up. I asked this because I saw in you a glamour and a weakness (based on your true ideals) and a negativity which hid itself behind a fearless idealism. I pointed then—if you will recall—to the need for "active understanding." I reiterate again this call.

August 1942

1. From where you stand I see a point of light, a shimmering thread of gold. It passes from your heart to mine and strengthens day by day, each year. Pass onward on this bridge of light.

[533]

2. Ever to you my message has gone forth: Love and more love. Again I send it forth and with my love.

3. You restrict your field of service, brother of old. Expand again.

4. My brother, the need of your heart is the need of my heart and the need of your brothers. This fusing of need will call forth the sun and shadows will disappear.

5. Men climb a wall, the sage remarked, and sit athwart the top. Then they climb down. Ponder on this.

6. At the foot of the wall lies a well, added the sage. Love lies at the bottom of the well. It cannot be drowned, but men love not deep water.

September 1943

BROTHER OF OLD:

There are certain key points in all lives which are deciding and frequently releasing factors. A major one for all disciples occurs around the age of thirty-five, and still another at the age of forty-two. It was when you reached that age that I intensified my observation of you. You had, if I may so express it, wandered (unconsciously to yourself) to the very edge of the aura of my Ashram. Later, when you entered the Arcane School and became one of its workers, you penetrated deeper into the Ashram in response to a certain drawing power which I deliberately exerted. I had long registered your "seeking vibration."

Another key point comes ever at the age of fifty-six, and as you neared that age, the pressure exerted on you by the conflicting pull of the Ashram, of your own soul and your personality mental processes created a dominant test in your life. In consequence of the reaction of the personality, of the soul test thus drastically imposed, and of your response to circumstances, your life is today conditioned as it is. You will understand whereof I speak and there is no need for me to be more explicit. The age of sixty-three will see another and lesser crisis, and upon the decision then made by you (and it can be physical, emotional, mental or of soul origin) [534] will depend the future of your life in this particular incarnation.

If your decisions—then and now—are made esoterically within my Ashram and where the focus of your life does persist, all will be well; if they are made through the use of the lower mind and under the influence of its rationalising influence, you are liable to make mistakes. Always in your life crises, you have been confronted by the way of love and by the way of mind, and usually your decisions have been the rational decisions of a somewhat aloof and self-focussed personality. Your last decision and chosen line of activity (which was of a definitely determining nature) was, for you, quite the most difficult, because you did not see as clearly as usual; your concrete lower mind did not apparently display its usual keen vision, and the "alternatives which love presents"—as one of the Masters has oft expressed it—blurred the usually clear lower vision but made decision on a higher level than heretofore possible. You underwent a period of much training and inner adjustment. Is this not so, my brother?

I watched with love and understanding, for that emotional disruption (well concealed from the outer world) was not concealed from me. I rejoiced, for it let in so much light that you have made more progress in the past three years than at any previous time in your life. You might ask me: Along what line? My reply would be: Along the line of an inclusive vision which sees the future of humanity more clearly in the light of the present than has ever before been possible to you. That is a great step onward.

For years I have emphasised to you the need for heart-love, and consistently and steadily you have tried to develop it through meditation, by theorising and by a conscious effort to love. Love, my brother, when present and of the right kind engenders a sense of personal responsibility. These are phases of responsibility which are based on love and not on work to be done, positions to be filled, people to be laboriously understood and the performance of your duties as a citizen, as an executive, or as an employee. Such phases have been curiously lacking in your life. You have evaded them, and this evasion has had its roots in an unrecognised fear of [535] failure should responsibility (through love for others) be shouldered by you; you have reacted to a profound distrust of yourself and to a fear of the intrusion of others unduly (not altogether, but unduly) in your ordered, planned life.

Most things can be viewed as too late for changing if approached in terms of one incarnation, but the soul thinks in terms of life cycles. A full and rich life cycle will open up for you as a consequence of this present incarnation, if you will handle your remaining years in a spirit of selfless responsive love—asking nothing for the separated self.

I have no fears for you, my brother. I would recall to you that the disrupting of life processes and the upheaval of an ordered point of view and of a planned and reasoned approach to daily living is in a measure a great releasing—a releasing of hidden beauties, unsuspected and seeking the light of day. Have you not read that the bombing of London by high explosives produced great upheavals and that ancient layers of soil—hidden for centuries from the light of day—were brought to the surface? As a result, strange, rare, unknown and beautiful flowers have this summer appeared to excite interest and investigation and to hide the ruins with beauty and colour. Ponder on this, for so it can be with a human life. Beauty is beginning to flower in your life, bringing its own responsibilities, engendering its own magnetic field, bringing to you those who otherwise might not have ventured to come, and who will give you a love which may at first arouse questioning in your mind but which will greatly enrich your life. It will also evoke responsibility. This responsibility will definitely extend your field of service. Be willing, therefore, to descend into the deep water to which I made reference in the last of the six statements given to you last year. The higher the wall, brother of mine, from which you fall, the deeper into the water you will go, and that, paradoxically, will be your salvation—my beloved brother. Look for this development and welcome it.