SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES (Continued) - PART 7
This beautiful land in the high, bright air, has been made into a garden with walls—oriental walls—fourteen feet high, with, in each corner, a Chinese-looking little minaret. A stream runs the entire length of this garden, from east to west; it comes in and goes out of the garden through arches in the walls, where there are iron grilles. Above these grilled arches, supported upon short stone beams projecting from the wall, are two narrow, stone-and-wood Chinese-curved bridges, backing on the wall, and with a latticed hand-rail on the side towards the stream. The gate to this garden is in the middle of the north wall—one of the long sides—the garden being more long than square. When one approaches the gate from outside, one sees written over it the words Peace, Rest, Service. It is an arched gate set into the thickness of the wall. A bell-rope leads to a bell hung in the arch. There is also a light, which shines at dusk, on the three words.
On being admitted, one steps inside, onto a path in the green lawn which slopes a very little towards the stream. Twenty feet down this path, on either side of it, is a flowering apple tree, the branches touching. A border of red peonies extends east and west from the apple tree, for about fifteen feet, ending, each in a red rose bush, a most fragrant rose. The path continues down the slightly sloping green lawn to the stream, which is about fifteen feet wide, and has rocks and ferns, depths and shallows. Butterflies and birds fly over it, and stepping-stones cross it at this place.
The stepping-stones over the stream lead to a path which wanders towards a pagoda of Chinese design, large, and with open sides. A circular table of some Indian wood is in the centre of the pagoda—and upon it a statue of Buddha faces the entrance. Before the Buddha is a carved wooden bowl lined with silver and containing water, on which floats a single white lotus.
There are brackets in the open sides of the pagoda, containing sweet-smelling flowers, mignonette and heliotrope. There is a circular seat around the wall, and rugs of some eastern grass on the floor. On either side of the entrance there are panels with shelves, containing scrolls and occult manuscripts for reference. Just outside are four beautiful spruce trees, two on each side of the doorway, and firs and pines continue to the back of the pagoda, and go down the entire length of the long south walk, forming a plantation about twenty-five feet wide, including native mountain trees, and our dogwood and small oaks. There is a path through this plantation, which is full of ferns, rocks and wood flowers. Between two rocks is a spring. It is a place of repose and peace for those who love the woods. Although one cannot see the lawn, one can come out on it when one wishes, over the pine-needles and moss, leaving behind the cool shade, and the birds and shy, small creatures—who sometimes follow—and then one sees, a few feet away, midway between the woods and the stream, a long flower border set right in the lawn, and containing every flower one ever loved! They are of every colour and every fragrance, except that red is not predominant, because of the red peonies and rose bushes across the stream.
Towards the western end of the lawn, a little beyond where the flower border ends, a lone oak tree seems to have marched out on the grass for a Druidic purpose of its own, a shapely young tree, taller than those in the wood. There is a bench beneath it.
Not far off, between the oak tree and the stream, there is a lotus pool, embedded in boulders and large flat rocks, like some of the rocks along the stream's edge and in the woods.
The lotus pool is kept replenished by water piped from the spring in the woods. Seated on these rocks one looks over and down about a foot or two, and sees these beautiful lotuses of different colours.
But the two ends of the garden are the real beauty spots—the eastern end, on both banks of the stream, being a mass of roses, beds branching out from the stream in the form of wings, going as far up as the narrow, hidden path along the eastern wall, so that one, standing on the curved stone bridge (at either end of which are feathery clumps of waving pampas grasses), looks down on seraphs' wings of glorious roses, shaded from faintest rose to golden yellow. At the western end of the garden the seraphs' wings are of lilies, from the purple of the iris to the radiant white of the Madonna lily. The shrubbery at the ends of the western bridge are "yellow bush" and lilacs. A fine [530]green vine runs all over the wall here, where, at the other end, it is rambling roses. These seraph-wing rose and lily beds, though large, do not extend into the corners of the two ends of the garden; trees are there, spruce, pine and Japanese yews; more plentiful in the southwest corner, as they form the beginning of the woods. In the northwest corner there are three tall yews, only—and the same in the corner to the northeast. The southeast corner is filled by the pagoda, with the woods behind it and the spruce trees to right and left, in front. Across the stream from the pagoda, in the middle of the lawn (the eastern line of the peonies and the red rose bush not being very far away), is a circular stone seat, called the Disciples' Seat. It has a small willow tree and two short copper beeches behind it, and has an English box bush at either end. In front of it is a natural rock, of chair shape and height, where the Master sits to talk to the Disciples.
When one stands on the path and looks towards the entrance gate, one sees fruit trees, en espalier on the wall to the right, peaches and nectarines—and on the wall to the left, vines of white and of purple grapes. A narrow path runs the length of the wall. To the left on the lawn is a rustic, moss-covered well-house, enclosed by bushes of sweet shrub and white lilac, behind and at the sides, certain small, shade-loving flowers, a very few lilies-of-the-valley, here and there a fern.
There is a small, gravelled space in the front of the well—it contains a rustic table, where the grapes and fruit are brought to be arranged in flat baskets, to be sent down the mountain, by donkeys, in care of those who have the right to be admitted to the garden, to the ill and weary in the town below. (Old Aleck, a saintly old gardener, these many years dead, may be one who helps with this work. I do not know!) The well water is very cold—a bucket is always ready for the descent. I believe this water has the property of giving one greater vision. It is pure joy to offer it to the thirsty and weary, and each day, among the souls arriving, there is a different well-keeper, always one who has had a glimpse of the vision.
I believe this is the picture of my garden!
As you can see, it is a magical garden, for all the flowers bloom all the time, and of course there are many in that long flower border that I have not mentioned, only to say that all the flowers one ever loved were there—but I have planted dahlias, for childhood memory, canterbury bells, pinks, phlox, small chrysanthemums, platycondon, evening primrose—still memory!—sweet geranium, lavender, lemon verbena, sweet alyssum, old-fashioned roses, day lilies, tiger lilies (in spite of my rose and lily beds to the east and west!) and in the stream is growing mint, near the western exit, and other water-loving herbs. But I think every brother who enters this garden sees his own favourite flowers—I want to think so.
To R. L. U.
April 1935
BROTHER OF OLD:
In this address, you get a clue to the answer of your question: Why was I chosen as a member of this group? Because an old time link connects us, and because of a hidden development which is very unusual, but which as yet is hindered from all outer expression by your inhibiting personality. These two factors: your old relation with myself, and the beauty of that which lies revealed within you, prompts me to offer you this opportunity for specialised training. You have been puzzled over this choice, having no particular admiration for the quality of your personality. Is this not so? I am choosing my words with care. You are prone to be disgusted with yourself—an inchoate and oft unrealised disgust. That is due to the ferment of the hidden spiritual life which you have yet to offer to your fellowmen. You have a faculty for understanding which you have seldom used, and a power to work as a psychologist which is as yet entirely unrealised by yourself, either mentally or in fact. It is this hidden something that I have realised and sought to draw forth.
Your life setting had to be changed before it was possible for you to release this soul quality in service. As you draw it forth during the next few years, you will find it shedding a light upon your own past relationships; you may then feel pained at much that you may have failed to do in the past. [532] Forget not, that under the Law governing disciples, opportunities will inevitably arise which will enable you to adjust past conditions and any faulty handling. See that the dawning spirit of love irradiates your life and pours through you to others, and see to it also that you render back to all, the love which you have received and will receive.
I am asking A.A.B. to give you a copy of a meditation used in the Arcane School. I have made certain changes and enrichments which I will indicate to you.... Follow this, my brother, for the next six months. For your seed thoughts I suggest the following words:
1st and 2nd months—The golden light of love irradiates my Path. I am that Path.
3rd and 4th months—As a beacon light in a dark place, I radiate the light. I stand in spiritual being.
5th and 6th months—I affirm gratitude to all Light-bearers. I affirm love to all I meet. I am myself the love of God, the light that shines, the Way.
The very simplicity of my instruction may almost disappoint you, yet there is relatively so little to do before the inner beauty finds release that I seek to have you first achieve that. Then we can begin our work. In my next instruction, if you make the expected progress, I will start the occult training which you so much desire. One thing I will ask you to do, however: Ponder upon the use of the creative imagination and the power of visualisation. I will also ask you to embody the results of this pondering and thought in a paper, thus externalising your inner recognitions.
October 1935
BROTHER OF OLDEN TIME:
It will be apparent to you that there would be no gain in my changing your work at this time, for you have been so short a time in this group that you have scarcely mastered the initial stages or the scope of the assigned work. That "ferment of the spiritual life" which lies deep hidden in your personal life is [533] increasing in its activity, and that which you have to give to your group brothers and to your fellowmen is nearer to the surface than it was six months ago. He who walks with you along life's path has had much to do in releasing you, for the major liberating force in life is love. Hence for you the ending of the old life and the beginning of the new.
Again, for the next six months, I want the theme of loving understanding to constitute the focus of your attention. Forget not that your soul ray is the Ray of Love-Wisdom, and that, therefore, through the right alignment and the discipline of the personality, will that love nature of yours (in all its fullness and richness) be poured through you to others. Your power to express love increasingly will be the guarantee of the effectiveness of your alignment and the success of your meditation. Before the time comes for you to pass over to the fuller life, lived by a soul when separated from the body, the expression of love will be for you the line of least resistance. I mean love, and not sentiment, my brother.
The seed thoughts for the meditation work during the next five months will be as follows. You have that which should occupy your thoughts during several months.
1st month—The soul and the self are one. Between the self of the lower nature and the self on the higher plane there must be at-one-ment.
2nd month—When I, the emotional man, am dedicated to the soul, love pours through. Thus can I serve.
3rd month—I raise no barriers 'twixt myself and others. I am as they, and one with all I meet.
4th month—There are no changes on the way of love. I stand at-one with all, and through the lower self, love flows.
5th month—Give me to love, and give me those who need my love and let me fill that need.
Be not misled by the apparent simplicity of these seed thoughts for meditation, my brother. They are deep and profound and contain the mystery of the soul and of the cosmos.
[534]
March 1936
It is not my habit, brother of mine, nor is it ever necessary where disciples are concerned, to express undue appreciation of work accomplished or to feed the vanity of the average aspirant. However, I would like today to tell you that you have done good work in this readjustment process with yourself; you have made more real progress during the last three years than you did in the previous ten. There has been a definite expansion of your consciousness and a decided deepening of your spiritual life. Of this I am confident you are yourself aware. The recognition, by an older disciple, of definite growth in a younger, constitutes a responsibility to that younger disciple. I point out to you, therefore, that I recognise your progress, and I do this in order to spur you on to renewed effort, and also to give myself the opportunity to indicate to you the need for your widening in the life of service. Vertical growth and horizontal growth must parallel each other.
Two things I seek to say to you. These are days of spiritual opportunity and of world crisis. They are for you, as an individual, days of opportunity. A disciple makes his own crises and where a life is devoid of crisis (at your stage of development) it means the disciple is standing still. It means that his work is of such a kind that it makes no impact on his surroundings and his associates. It, therefore, has no value. For you the necessity is to stand in your circle of life as a quiet centre, but let it be the quiet which is achieved by the mastering of turmoil and not the quiet of a stagnant pool.
I have watched you, my brother of old, for nine years, for there is, as you know, a karmic link between us. I have seen you grow and deepen, and I have seen under the exterior man, a new, tender and understanding man come into being, for I can see both that which the world sees and also the subtler person. There has been for many years an exterior hardness, but the time is near when the subtler person (known and recognised by one or two) will appear and make its impact upon a wider circle. This will be done not by deliberate effort but by the recognition of release and of accomplishment. Ponder on these two words. As a soul, stand free in your environment.
[535]
The second thing I have to say to you has reference to the definite organisation of your life. You must and should fulfil all your needed and right obligations to those with whom your lot is cast, but you should also have definite times for the life of a disciple. In putting the situation thus before you, my duty ends. The way, the means and the methods are yours to decide. Release will come for you through the right comprehension of the time element and due discrimination between the essentials and the non-essentials. Upon these I ask you to ponder.
A more intense inner life and a more vital life of service are, I know, your ideals, but the one is dependent upon the other.
I seek now to change entirely your meditation. The earlier one given has accomplished its intended preliminary purpose. I suggest to you, therefore, the following. Do it with regularity, laying your major emphasis, however, upon the work of the Full Moon Approach and for five days in each month substitute that for your usual meditation work.
1. As a soul, link up with your group brothers and with all who are close to you on the inner planes and send forth the spirit of love and peace.
2. Then do the following visualisation exercise, after centring your consciousness in the head.
a. See in your mind's eye a lake of blue water, entirely surrounded by mountains.
b. It is night, and there is no sound upon the lake, except the lapping of the water around the little boat in which you are seated. You can see nothing.
c. Then, as your boat rocks on the waters of the lake, slowly you watch the dawn awaken in the east behind the mountain tops.
d. As you see the light grow, you become aware of other boats that are all slowly making their way towards the gleaming gold at the eastern end of the lake.
e. The rest of the visualisation exercises, dating from the points indicated to you above, are entirely at your discretion. I leave the picture unfinished, [536] leaving it to the unfolding opportunity of your creative imagination. I shall be interested to know, after six months' meditation, what you have done in your little boat.
3. Then raising the consciousness as high in your head as possible, meditate "in the light" on the following seed thoughts:
1st month—For me there is no light apart from others. If they are in the dark, into that dark I go.
2nd month—I am a window through which the light can shine. That light must reach my fellowmen.
3rd month—In service to the nearest and the farthest I must each day dedicate my prime endeavour.
4th month—I heal not with my hands. I heal through speech. Thus must I learn to speak and speak aright.
5th month—The mind reveals the truth. That truth am I. My words must open up the way to other hearts and minds.
6th month—I have no barriers and no preferences, no choices and no separating walls. Upon the Path I walk and all to me are one.
4. Then say the Great Invocation:
Let the Forces of Light bring illumination to mankind.
Let the Spirit of Peace be spread abroad.
May men of goodwill everywhere meet in a spirit of cooperation.
May forgiveness on the part of all men be the keynote at this time.
Let power attend the efforts of the Great Ones.
So let it be and help us to do our part.
5. And close with the benediction:
"May the Holy Ones, Whose pupils we aspire to become, show us the light we seek; give us the strong aid of Their compassion and Their wisdom. There is a peace that passeth understanding; it abides in the [537] hearts of those who live in the Eternal. There is a power that maketh all things new; it lives and moves in those who know the Self as one. May that peace brood over us, that power uplift us, till we stand where the One Initiator is invoked, till we see His Star shine forth.
"May the peace and the blessing of the Holy Ones pour forth over the worlds."
September 1936
MY BROTHER:
The hidden gift of the intuition, released through love, is what you have to give your group. The technical foundation of truth is there but being the same, practically in detail, as that which your brothers already possess in greater or less degree, they need not that help from you. They need the intuitive understanding which the soul possesses, and they need it displayed through love, unblinded by personalities. When you love people, you are frequently blind to their faults and accept them at their own valuation. When they mean nothing to you personally, you are indifferent. Neither of these attitudes is right. Clear vision, love to all beings and a pure radiance are yours to give, if you so choose. Therefore, give.
March 1937
MY BROTHER:
There is no need to ask you to go on and climb the mountain of attainment. The seed thoughts suggested below will give you needed hints upon the mode of climbing.
1st month—Lift up thine eyes. Look not upon the ground.
2nd month—Recognise the group of fellow climbers and not just the two or three.
3rd month—Let thy feet be swift, and hampered not by earthly friendships.
4th month—Let thy heart be full of love, and love the many.
5th month—Stretch out a hand to all, and aid the stumbling on the way.
6th month—Give strength to those who work for others, and work thyself.
[538]
Write then an article for your own clarification upon the use of love in service and give seven rules for climbing—rules you have wrought out for yourself in the crucible of service.
I have also for you a somewhat unique task. Think out and design a symbol—an esoteric form—which will embody the objectives of the group of my disciples with whom you are affiliated, and indicate the way of service.
October 1937
BROTHER OF MINE:
I have but a simple message for you today, and yet the methods whereby you may conform to the hints I seek briefly to give you are not by any means simple. Your major need is for an intensification of your inner spiritual aspiration. You need to work more definitely from what might be called a point of tension. Study, in the new group instructions, what I have said about tension and intensity. It is intensity of purpose which will change you from the plodding, fairly satisfactory aspirant into the disciple whose heart and mind are aflame. Perhaps, however, you prefer to go forward steadily, with no group effort, making your work for me and for the group an ordered part of the daily life, which you can adjust pretty much as you like, and in which the life of the spirit receives its reasonable share, in which the service aspect is not neglected, and your life presentation is neatly balanced and carried forward without much real strain. When this is the case, it may be your personality choice or your soul decision for a specific life, but it means that you are not the disciple, with everything subordinated to the life of discipleship.
I would like here to point out two things to you.
First: If you can so change your tension that you are driven by the life of the spirit, it will entail a galvanic upheaval in your inner life. For this, are you prepared? Secondly: it will not produce any outer change in your environing relationships. Your outer obligations and interests must continue to be met, but I am talking to you in terms of inner orientations, dynamic inner decisions, and an interior organising for service and for sacrifice. Perhaps you prefer the slower and easier way? If that is so, it is entirely your own affair, and you are still on your [539] way. You are still a constructive and useful person. I am simply here facing you with one of the crises which come in the life of all disciples, wherein choices have to be made that are determining for a cycle, but for a cycle only. It is pre-eminently a question of speed and of organising for speed. This means eliminating the non-essentials and concentrating on the essentials—the inner essentials, as they concern the soul and its relation to the personality, and the outer ones as they concern you and your environment.
I would give you three key thoughts for deep reflection during the next few months; will you ponder on them, within the head, and, later, brood on them in the heart. These key thoughts are:
1. The necessity for speed.
2. The reorganisation of standards of thought and of living.
3. The expression of:
a. Sincerity
b. Sacrifice
c. Simplicity
I would suggest then that at the close of this period and as a contribution to the life of your group, you write a paper giving your understanding of these five words—speed, standards, sincerity, sacrifice, simplicity—and their inner significance. One of the key words which I gave you when admitting you to the group was the wordunderstanding. Mental understanding you have in large measure; it is the understanding of the heart to which I called your attention. You can go far along the Path of Discipleship, my brother and my friend, when your heart centre opens and you can think with love. Do you understand the paradox of that?
As with the others, I will tell you what are the governing rays of your equipment. As you know already, your soul ray is the second; you will, therefore, see the reason for my emphasis upon the heart unfoldment, for it will necessitate the effort of your soul and mind, working in conjunction, to bring about this result. Your personality is on the fourth ray, and you have considered this as constituting for you the ray of the artist, of the creative worker. But it is necessary to remember that this is [540] also the Ray of Harmony through Conflict, and it is to this aspect of the ray in relation to your personality that I call your attention. This inner conflict, God-given and of deeply spiritual import, is a service.
Your mental body is on the fifth ray, giving you your grip of facts and your grasp of the contours of the occult sciences. But this mental body must be guided into being an instrument of illumination and not simply a recorder of facts; this only becomes possible when head and heart vibrate in unison.
Your astral body is upon the sixth ray. This gives you the one-pointedness which is such an asset to any disciple, but it also gives a measure of narrowness which at times handicaps you.
Your physical body is on the third ray. This gives you an active, intelligent grip upon life and a coordinated physical vehicle. Shift your focus of attention away, however, from the physical vehicle which, at times, engrosses your attention, and shift it also away from the mental body into that of the astral body. Use the force which will then come through into that vehicle in the task of understanding the "heart of things and of people," through the medium of your opened heart. Your rays are, therefore:
1. The soul ray—the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.
2. The personality ray—the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict.
3. The ray of the mental body—the fifth Ray of Concrete Science.
4. The ray of the astral body—the sixth Ray of Devotion.
5. The ray of the physical body—the third Ray of Active Intelligence.
March 1938
MY BROTHER:
You are to be commended in that you have preserved your sense of the goal and succeeded in fulfilling your group tasks in spite of continuous change of environment and constant movement. I would have you know this and that this persistence of yours has been noted and received due appreciation. Out of a widened horizon and greatly extended contacts should emerge [541] a richer and a fuller life of service and a less satisfied reaction to your personality environment and condition; a sense of values should be apparent to you which will necessitate certain basic adjustments in your daily life. These readjustments will be basic, interior and subjective. They will produce (as I told you in my last instruction) no faltering in your relations and your duty to those you love and with whom your destiny is cast for the remainder of this life; they will permit no slackening in your responsibilities to those whom you are pledged interiorly to love and to serve. But they will serve to provide a widened scope for more magnetic service and for a life of outer spiritual accomplishment. For this you are well equipped and yet, with the exception of some words spoken at times to friends and acquaintances and the fulfilment of your home duties, plus your executive work in the group, your life is not yet dynamically focussed on service or on doing your share in meeting the world emergency. You are not oppressed with the need to serve; you are not struggling to plan your life so that you can render some definite service and you have no inner spiritual programme of service beyond the right fulfilment of your duties as wife and mother and of your social obligations. You lack as yet that "plus" which indicates spiritual efficiency; much of your time is frittered away in profitless doings of some kind or another. It is that "plus" for which I am looking in you, my brother, and for a life lived stably, wisely and based upon a better standard of values.
Part of the problem is connected with your third ray physical body which demands change and requires variety; it dislikes quietness and stability; part of it is the result of your fifth ray mentality (your personality focus is pre-eminently there) which renders you non-magnetic and gives you a vertical and not a horizontal attitude to life. Your personality ray, being the fourth, opens wide the door for soul contact and (when that contact is made and established) it will bring in your second ray energy. This, in your case, will express itself as love more than wisdom, and it will render you creative in a newer and more powerful sense, and make you so magnetic that you will become a focal point of inspiration and loving service to all around you.
[542]
Resume your creative work, my brother, and let the love that is deeply hidden in your nature emerge more fully to the surface in relation to the many and not only to the few.
I would suggest that you follow the meditation suggested below. It is definitely a fifth ray meditation and has for its purpose the revelation of the science of service. The fifth Ray of Concrete Knowledge is, in reality, that on which a man learns to use all acquired knowledge of the "form divine" in such a way that the inner life is served and the outer form becomes the magnetic expression of the divine life. It is the ray of intelligent love above all else, just as the second ray is the ray of intuitive love—a fact which is seldom remembered or known.
SUGGESTED MEDITATION
1. Alignment. Focus attention in the mind nature to the vibration, the quality of the overshadowing second ray soul.
2. Then make the effort to achieve a point of fusion, holding the consciousness at that point as steadily and for as long as possible.
3. Then sound the O.M. as the aspiring personality and again as the overshadowing soul, and once more from the attained point of fusion.
4. Ponder then on the following fifth ray seed thoughts or symbolic phrases, endeavouring to see them visually in symbol form.
First month............ The great Wheel turns—the Potter's wheel. The vase of life is formed.
Second month....... The ivory puzzle box contains the many lesser forms, all true to type, conforming to the pattern. They veil a central ball—the seed of life.
Third month........... A chrysalis appears. Upon its outer shell, upon the inner side, appears the pattern of the form which is to be. What is that future form?
Fourth month......... A block of marble, deep within the quarry lies. Hidden within it lies [543] likewise a form of beauty rare. The sculptor works, patterning true to that which lies revealed unto the inner sight. He patterns true and beauty comes to life.
Fifth month............ A bridge is built. Two forms are brought within each other's reach. Build thou a form, a bridge.
Sixth month........... I saw all forms gathered within the Form of God. Thus one great Form appeared.
5. Sound the O.M. and vitalise the pictorial vision which you have succeeded in evoking in your imaginative consciousness whilst pondering on the monthly seed thoughts.
March 1939
MY BROTHER:
My words to you in the last series of instructions have sunk deeply into your consciousness and, little by little, the inner programme which should govern your life is slowly taking form—even if you remain as yet somewhat unconscious of it. How seldom do those who have the time and the leisure serve as do those who have no time or leisure! Reflect upon this statement and see to it that some form of life service takes shape in your consciousness which is other than the daily round which falls to those who tend a home. So oft the tending of a home, the functioning as a wife and mother and the performance of the social round, is deemed an adequate expression of service. For some it may and should be so. For others it is not, and you are among those who should function creatively and whose life should be dedicated to the expression of inner reality through the medium of some outer form. What will you, therefore, do if these words of mine are true?
The world emergency is such that those who are affiliated with or who are members of the Hierarchy are calling for all the conscious creative aid that we can find. I call on you.
[544]
It is for you to find the way to serve and to gain the needed sense of proportion, the necessary realisation as to the basic essentials of the spiritual life, and the tested discrimination and discerning faculty which will indicate to you the manner, the time and the mode of your service.
I give you no change in your meditation. I would ask you to continue with the one which I last gave to you, eliminating all the preliminary stages and—after a rapid alignment—take one of the symbolic phrases and reflect deeply upon it. Then proceed with the group meditation, for the united group work and the facilitating of its preliminary technique of service is the major task for all of you during this next period of work.
NOTE: Temporarily, this disciple withdrew from the group of the Tibetan's disciples, influenced thereto by friends, but in so doing, learnt much, and on the inner side remains close.
To K. E. S.
August 1935
BROTHER OF OLD:
This method of beginning an instruction is one oft used by me, as you well know. It is necessarily a wide generalisation, based on true experience in relationship with each other. Thus, in other lives, I have stood to you in relation of teacher to pupil for some time, and that relation is now to be strengthened upon the physical plane. For long you have sensed my presence, and sensitive people also, who know you well, have likewise sensed it. This you also well know. The contact is now to be more closely established; your instruction on the path will now be more definite and your way more accurately defined. This, too, your friends may sense, and being not free from human error and, walking oft in the vale of illusion, they may be led to see, hear and relate that which is not the case, and which certainly can be ascertained by you at first hand. Use, therefore, discrimination, my brother. That which they have sensed is but my distorted reflection upon the astral plane, for all that is there reflected is not seen correctly. My contact with you must, in the [545] future, be more direct, increasingly self-ascertained, and based upon the linking of your soul with mine upon the mental plane. Ponder on this.
Each expansion of consciousness is preceded by a period of testing in some one of the three bodies, and in some aspect of the lower nature. To this, you have been no exception. For two years now you have been tested, consciously or unconsciously, and this climaxed in the illness of the past summer. This I know you realise. Such tests produce an inner unfoldment which may be more apparent to those who teach you than to yourself. This testing and its results constitute a responsibility, and open up avenues of approach to the central reality of the soul, hitherto not employed.
You are entering now upon a few years of intensified training. For this you must be prepared. Are you willing for a while to submit to what may be suggested by me, and, patiently, willingly and without looking for results, conform to my suggestions? If you do so, you will find changes taking place in your interests and outlook, and will arrive at fresh ways of dealing with life. You will also find repudiations taking place, which will alter the trend of your life interests, and these will be based on a changed attitude of mind and a more positive inner focussing. This process of repudiating constitutes one of the hardest aspects of the disciple's career. You have moved forward upon the Path of Discipleship and must be prepared.
Two things require adjustment in the inner life of your experiencing. First, you must enter into a deeper and more assured soul experiencing. This will involve outer detachments, inner re-adjustments and the steady development of the ability to stand as a conscious soul in the light. You are not yet used to my method of instruction, as are senior disciples in my group. I only seek to suggest. I give hints in the ancient occult manner, leaving it to you to interpret and to act as seems best to you. I ask for sincerity of purpose on the part of those I teach, and a willingness to act when the next step is illumined. I do not indicate to any of you at any time if there has been right interpretation of my words and suggestions. I seek to train conscious, responsible souls who will duly weigh suggestion and accept and act when the intuition indicates a procedure. [546] You will have to ponder deeply upon my words until the rapport between us is more strongly established upon the mental plane. I point you to positive action in line with clarity of vision could you but see it. Perhaps you promptly will.
Secondly, there are two adjustments in your relationships with people which you would find it wise to make; these would have a releasing effect upon your soul influence, and thus incidentally upon your personality life and environment. I speak not more clearly as the latter lies between you and your soul and is no concern of your co-disciples. The situation exists in the field of relationships and attitudes, and does not involve particularly drastic physical plane activity. If you see not clearly to what I am referring, wait in patience for a while, conform to my suggested technique for you and realisation may eventuate as time elapses.
For a year you must proceed with care in your meditation work and for six months (until I next communicate with you) I would have you do no breathing exercises at all. Later, when your physical health is better established, such exercises will serve a useful purpose.
I outline for you below a simple meditation exercise to be duly carried forward. Proceed with it carefully, and use not too great an intensity as yet. It is a meditation which I give at times to my pupils and is called a "Meditation on the Path of the Inner Light." This meditation comes at the close of this relatively brief communication which has for its main objective the intensification of the link already existing between us. This meditation with the general work assigned to my disciples is all I ask of you during the next six months.
1. Sit erect, but relaxed, and in a position of physical comfort.
2. Withdraw the consciousness inward in successive stages, using the imagination in so doing. The imagination is a creative activity, producing definite inner changes. Upon this you can depend, for it is one of the forces influencing substance itself. Therefore, withdraw your consciousness:
a. From the physical brain, after definitely centering it there, to the astral body.
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b. From the astral body to the mind. Then recognise yourself as being an integrated personality.
c. From the integrated personality to the soul.
3. As you do this work, endeavour to see the thread of golden light which connects these three bodies, keeping your consciousness steadily in the head, at the centre between the eyebrows, the ajna centre. This thread, dual in nature like two golden cables intertwined, passes from the heart and head and connects you, as a personality, with the soul.
4. When you have thus carried it upwards, and seen it aligning and relating all the three aspects of the personality, then pause in your meditation and realise—quietly and silently—that:
a. You are now face to face with your own soul, and standing before the Angel of the Presence, who is yourself.
b. You, the personal self, and the Angel, the divine Self, are one essential Reality, manifesting through three aspects. You are, therefore, a reflection of the Trinity of Deity.
c. There is in reality no separation or duality, no I, or Thou, but simply a God in manifestation, Whose nature is Light.
5. Then say:
a. Having pervaded this world of the little, manifested self with one fraction of myself, I remain greater, wider and overshadowing all my daily living.
Ponder on this thought for five minutes.
b. I, the manifesting Self, through the magical power of my nature, revitalise, redeem and
re-absorb this fraction, dwelling in the body.
Ponder on this for five minutes.
6. Then carry the life and light of the Angel of the Presence back again consciously into the body and know it to be there, illuminating your mind, rendering positive and quiescent your astral nature, and invigorating and stimulating your physical body. Do this definitely and slowly, using the will.
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7. Then send forth the incoming light and love in strength and blessing
a. To your group brothers.
b. To all in your immediate family and environment whom you seek to aid.
c. To distressed humanity.
As you do this regard yourself as working consciously as a soul and as a tiny representative and channel for the Hierarchy of Masters Whom you seek to serve. These can only reach your immediate personal circle and environment through you.
8. Then say aloud the following invocation:
"May the energy of the divine Self inspire and the light of the Soul direct; may I be led from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real, from death to immortality."
May 1936
MY BROTHER:
I have watched over you with a good deal of close attention during the past four months. I realise that your major need at this time is increased physical vitality far more than the virtues, characteristics and realisations usually regarded as spiritual. Some day, the sons of men will come to the understanding and recognition that all the modes of being, of expression and of contact are spiritual and of equal importance to the observing, contacting soul. This, I would ask you to remember and strive to realise.
You have two things, my brother and my friend, to do during the next few months. One is to establish and hold a closer re-collecting contact with your soul. That contact is already made and upon that assurance you can depend and rest back. But I would ask you to bring that realisation into your every day consciousness by counting on it and by availing yourself of the resources and strength which you possess, particularly when endeavouring to be of assistance to others. The second thing I would ask you to do is to follow a breathing exercise I will give you. I shall not tell you its objective as we will let the physical [549] results take care of themselves without any mental impress from you....
Keep busy, my brother, about the affairs of the Great Ones. You can do much by thought and pen to aid your brothers to work with greater power in the outer world. You must work from a quiet inner centre; it is not your task to struggle with the forces of life in the market place of life—if I might be permitted to speak thus symbolically. Know you not that we—the teachers on the inner side—need those whose lives can be shielded from the rougher contacts of life through whom we can work? If some of our aspirants and disciples in the tortured countries of the world could grasp this fact, they would not struggle so against the outer physical conditions in which they find themselves. They would live with quietness, developing increasing sensitivity to our impression and would wield greater power through rightly directed thought. Ponder on this.
Your mental body is on the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict, as you may have suspected. This facilitates contact with and impression from your second ray soul. This will become increasingly apparent to you as you learn to focus yourself in your mind. You will, therefore, bring in a fuller tide of soul force as time elapses.
Your astral body is on the sixth Ray of Devotion or Idealism. This accounts for much in your life interests, which provides opportunity for service and indicates certain lines of impressionability. These require watching and necessitate correct interpretation. Upon this suggestion, I would ask you to ponder, remembering that when the astral body is upon the sixth ray there is necessarily established a line of least resistance between it and the sixth plane, for you have the sixth vehicle, the sixth plane, and the sixth ray all closely related. Students would do well to bear these relationships in mind, for the lines of least resistance are seldom the lines to be followed. Yet, at times, they are. Hence the need for discriminating consideration.
Your physical body is on the seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order or Magic, and hence your interest in spiritualism, for one thing, and hence also your choice of a life profession, for another. Hence also the facility with which you could establish [550] and hold a steady contact between soul-mind-brain. You have much with which to work and for the remainder of your life should remember this. There is much you can do to increase your ability to unfold continuity of consciousness between the various planes. I would commend this thought to your close attention.
January 1938
BROTHER OF MINE:
Will you study carefully the visualisation exercise which I have given to P.D.W. and then follow it yourself with care? It will be good for both of you for you are equally feeling the limitations of the physical body, and both of you—being swept by the urge to serve—have much to endure in the cultivation of patience and a right sense of proportion.
I would call your attention with emphasis to a word which could give a key to your life: direct knowledge. Do you not realise that in the quiet of your own room and away from the chaos of modern life (which is your present privilege) that you have the priceless opportunity to acquire that direct knowledge? P.D.W. has already acquired much of it and for him there comes the training (again in the quiet of his room) to use it dynamically in the realm of thought. You might rightly ask me the question: Direct knowledge of what? and I would reply:
Direct knowledge of your own soul, so that it is a fact and a reality in your life and not only a belief and a hope. The way to that knowledge is through alignment.
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