SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES (Continued) - PART 1
February 1936
MY BROTHER:
You have had a year of strain and of much anxiety. But you have grown much thereby and there is a greater measure of freedom to be seen in you subjectively than ever before. You are learning to detach yourself from people and from the clinging hands of those demanding presences who are to be found clamouring for your attention in their lives. This freedom must increase as you endeavour to meet perfectly the need of those around you, yet at the same time you must go on with increasing power detaching yourself from their inner hold upon you. They must fail to reach you in the inner fortress of your soul. There you must learn to stand, detached and unafraid.
I cannot too strongly urge this detachment on you and beg you to live henceforth more bravely the life of the sannyasin. Two years ago I could not have spoken thus, for you would not have understood; but you have advanced far since those days, my brother, and are beginning to enter into the realm of freedom, e'en though your freedom is as yet but relative and incomplete.
I am now going to give you six themes for meditation during the next six months, gathered out of the paragraphs which I gave to you last time for your consideration. Let your meditation, therefore, follow the following lines.
1st month—Why is strength needed to:
a. Tread the Path of Revelation.
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b. Cross the sea of dark illusion.
c. Face the lighted way of earth.
2nd month—What should I do? I seek to tread the lighted Way which leads back to the Presence. What in my life obstructs that Way?
3rd month—How can I do the duty of this day, yet demonstrate detachment?
4th month—How can I meet each rising need, yet stand apart and unafraid?
5th month—How can I enter into light and steadfast stand, seeing the truth on every hand?
6th month—How can I guide my brothers on the Way and with them find the secret of the dark light which reveals? How can I discover the agent which dispels illusion?
Dedicate yourself and life and all you have to the service of the Plan and do this in full consciousness and not as a required duty. Stand with your group brothers in the light of the Presence. As a group, renew your dedication.
August 1936
MY BROTHER AND FRIEND:
The past six months have seen you subjected to much outer change; you have passed through difficulties of various kinds and many adjustments and re-adjustments; you have known physical suffering and pain, accompanied, at times by bewilderment. Is this not so? But none of these things have held you or destroyed you, nor have they succeeded in tarnishing the white shield of your fiery faith. This you have held ever before you. Such conditions of difficulty must be expected by all aspirants who have reached the point in their evolution when they can find their way into these groups. All of your group brothers have experienced a hard time and, without exception, have been tested and tried, or are being tested and tried. They are wrestling with glamour, apparently bewildered and held back by physical liability; their usefulness is apparently curtailed through financial stringency; re-adjustments through loss of some kind is apparently crippling the endeavour of others, even [395] to the point of producing a temporary inertia. Such is the group history at this particular time.
Let me put this still more clearly so that the group need and problem (which is formed by the sum total of the needs and the problems of all its members) may stand revealed and thus spur you all on to a closer cooperation with each other and a more loving understanding. Let us look at the situation, as I see it, of the various members.
Several have had re-adjustments to make of a very drastic nature in their daily life. The entire rhythm of ordinary existence has been changed. This I foretold many months ago, and time has proved the exactness of my foretelling. The difficulties have been real, but service to others has increased.
One of your co-disciples, as her correspondence shews, has had deeper inner problems to solve, based on her immediate point of view and the fact that she is swinging more potently on to mental levels, as a result of her concentrated work with me. This has brought about an inevitable reaction to the rhythm and tendency of the mental plane to produce a sense of isolation (which can be enjoyed in the earlier stages). All this has been complicated by financial anxiety, with its power to cloud the vision. She is on her way out, but her mental stress is definitely affecting the group life. It will enrich the group life if she achieves the grace of standing steady until she has time to clarify her vision in either direction, and until she realises that no one achieves anything of reality by the laying down of any assumed responsibility.
Another has been subjected to the strain of constant and, at times, serious ill health, with its consequent reactions on the thought life and on the emotional life. The struggle with sickness and with fatigue, plus an equally constant urge to serve and to help, constitute no simple problem. This problem, she complicates by an undue analysis of circumstances and people.
One of my disciples, close to all of you, has had a long period (extending over many years) of strain, incident to environing conditions, much monotony in his life outline and certain deep disappointments. He is dealing with them as one might expect.
You, my brother, know to what you have had to rise, as the months have slipped away. You have met this with wisdom, [396] good intention and self-sacrifice. May I say (and I say it with a twinkle in my eye and with love) that you have not yet learnt to enjoy them.
D.H.B. has been through the fire. His tests and difficulties have been greater, fiercer and deeper than any that have come to the other group members. Pressure incident to his home karma, frustrations coming from his environment, misunderstandings of differing kinds, basic bad health at all times, plus the serious accident of the immediate past, loneliness, pain and clouds of recognised glamour have sought to engulf him. They cannot do so. This he also knows and is coming through.
A member of your group of co-disciples has been through deep sorrow, as all of you know. The processes of re-adjusting the rhythm of her life, becoming accustomed definitely to changed conditions, to loneliness and loss is weighing heavily upon her. She must realise that she is on her way to a greatly enriched life of service, and that her only present need is to stand steady and to give herself time to stabilise into her new rhythm.
Still another brother is fighting deep discouragement, and the glamour of futility (after so many years as a disciple) is seeking to swing him off the Path. His characteristic life tendency of pushing unemotionally straight ahead will save him here, for he will penetrate the glamour in time and come out into the light of the "Lighted Way," but the clouds at times and at present seem to him very thick.
L.T.S-K. is experiencing a new opportunity to "come clear," but the trial, testing and bewilderment are severe. He feels alone. He believes himself misunderstood and underrated. There can be many close to one and watching over one in a fog, and yet they can remain unrecognised.
The point I am seeking to make as I give you all this brief résumé of the immediate and basic problems which confront each of you is that these conditions do have a potent effect upon the group life and the group integration, and that the quicker they are handled and ended the better for the group. They are to be handled by the assuming of a right inner attitude and not by the changing of outer circumstances. When an individual is occupied and preoccupied with a particular and [397] peculiar problem, he is necessarily introverted. The life of the group then necessarily suffers and becomes starved, limited and curtailed. When the group members realise this fact more clearly, then they will endeavour to go through their experiences together (which prevents the development of an unwholesome and selfish introversion) and the problems of one will become the problems of all. Not idly have you all been brought together into this close relation with each other. Therefore give to each other more freely, but without criticism and enquiry; love and steady each other as you go through the needed fusing and testing. This has to be undergone and more rightly handled before I can give you any definite world work to do along the line of breaking up the world illusion. How can you destroy (on a large scale) that which you do not understand, handle and disperse (on a small scale) in your own lives? This future work should be possible some day.
I seek not to change your meditation, except to alter its monthly theme. These monthly themes should, during the next six months, be as follows:
1st month—Why is happiness needed in order to:
a. Tread the Path of Revelation.
b. Meet the needs of others.
c. Clear away the obstacles I find?
2nd month—What is the relation of happiness to joy?
a. What do I know of each?
b. Which is characteristic of the soul?
3rd month—How can the words and the understanding of "the joy of the Lord is your strength" affect my daily life?
a. In what ways can I demonstrate joy?
b. How can I shew forth happiness?
c. What are the differences in these two?
4th month—In what way can joy and happiness undermine fear, and liberate me from fears?
5th month—How can I enter into the joy which the Masters know?
a. Upon what is this joy based?
b. What effect can joy have upon the world of illusion?
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6th month—Why must I bring joy to my group brothers?
a. How can I do this in each specific case, for each case differs?
b. What are the major hindrances to my own joyfulness?
Thus, my brother, you can train yourself to build in that quality of joy which is the characteristic of a personality which is consciously anchored in the soul realm.
February 1937
I have only the briefest of words for you, my brother of old and trusted friend. It is not the length of a message, however, but its quality which is of importance, is it not? I seek to say to you that you have, during the past seven months, made more definite inner progress than in the previous three years, and that my heart, as I watch your steps upon the Way, goes out to you with understanding and with joy. It is not often that I thus write.
I have watched you stand amidst the wrecking of much that you have built, and I have seen you relinquish desire with a light in your eyes—the light of perception of the higher values.
The group meditation will give you much during the next six months, and the Review on Joy will stabilise the work you have sought to accomplish since my last instructions to you. That is all I have to say, my brother. My blessing rests upon you.
ON JOY
1. What constitutes a review?
a. Am I confusing a reviewing with a re-doing or with a re-experiencing?
b. Am I asked to re-experience, or am I simply asked to observe as a detached onlooker?
2. Am I capable of detaching myself emotionally from any registration of joy?
3. Can I see myself mentally, unbiased by any reaction from the emotional, personal self? Am I personally capable of this?
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4. If I use this review on joy as it should be used, what will be the effect in my life, and what will be the effect in the life of the group I seek to serve?
5. Can I honestly say that I serve joyously?
6. Which do I desire the most, to serve joyously or to serve intelligently? Do I know my reasons?
7. If this review work is a definitely scientific method of development, have I ever given the method of joy a fair trial? Or the work of the review a fair trial?
8. What basis can I find in my study that this method of reviewing is the way for me, and that it will intensify my capacity for increased usefulness in service and thus speed my progress on the Path?
9. Is my progress on the Path of importance? Why?
10. If it is true that the blind must advance by touching, and by keeping hold, but that those with sight move byseeing and by keeping free and unattached, why then (having sight) do I close my eyes and hold on, and feel my way instead of seeing it? Those who can see are full of joy, and can be messengers and helpers. Those who touch have simply to be led. Of which of these two groups am I a member?
11. Is my mind the organ of vision for the spiritual man? Am I offering this organ to the higher self to use?
12. Can I hold the mind steady in the light of the soul?
13. As I review my day, what part has joy played?
14. How do I define the word joy?
15. Have I been ruled by joy, and has it dominated my day?
16. Joy is the quality which grows out of self-realisation. Am I able to forget the fragmentary personal self? Can I recognise the One Self in all selves?
17. We are told that there is an archetype, a pattern, a way, a goal, and a light which shines upon the Path. But, realising this, do I know anything of the joy which should irradiate my way?
18. How is the archetypal pattern of joy (which is bliss) reflected in my life?
19. Do I recognise my fellow pilgrims on the Way of Joy?
20. Is the objective of joy always before me?
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21. Can I draw upon the Joy and Bliss of the Path when others need it?
22. I am the redeemer of the lower nature. In what way does joy redeem?
23. Does redeeming joyous force flow through me?
24. My nature is in truth joy, or bliss. In what fashion does this joy manifest itself? Does it manifest at all?
25. In which body do I most easily express my joy?
26. If I demonstrated joy, was it a task, or did I find it easy?
27. What activities and qualities of my lower nature need to be eliminated if I seek to serve more joyously?
28. What truthfully hinders my being full of joy?
29. How does a joyous spirit affect my fellowmen?
30. In what way can I most joyously serve my fellowmen?
September 1937
MY BROTHER:
The difficulties and the trials which the disciple experiences upon the Way are, as you have discovered, only relative; they are oft offset by the pouring in of a sense of inner release. The compensations on the Way are not so often considered as are the difficulties. In the human being there is ever a tendency towards sorrow and suffering which has eventually to be negated; this tendency is one of the problems which the Hierarchy has to face, as it seeks strenuously, at this time, to lift mankind out of the morass in which it finds itself. This "tendency to misery," founded as it is on an attitude of mind, is of such ancient habit that it seems inconceivable to man that a different point of view and a totally different reaction to life affairs could ever be possible. I am referring to this because (in the midst of problems and tests) you are discovering the Way of Compensation. Do you think, my brother, that you could write a paper on this theme, "Compensations on the Way," for the helping of your fellowmen and for the stabilising of your own inner attitude?
I have given you much about which to think in my instruction; may it not be possible that, before long, through the release from the load of business cares, there may come for you a time of widened service? This could be through the use of [401] your pen, for you have knowledge of that which should be said, and words flow with ease from your pen, even if you realise it not. I commend this to you for your consideration. You have been much occupied for many years with the cares of a great business organisation and your imposed (and rightly imposed) preoccupations were with the more material aspects of life. Such was your dharma. Within that sphere of activity, you have preserved an inner orientation to the spiritual values and a fixed determination to tread the Way which naught has been able to alter.
Much preoccupation, however, with little things and the demands of the many clamouring personalities who surround you have slowed the pace. You might, perhaps, have travelled faster had you been able, more efficient, to separate the essential from the non-essential. This I think you know. Having realised this, a future of constructive beauty lies ahead, if so you will, or the more ordinary life of one whose vehicle is not young and who submits to the imperative voice of physical fatigue and the liabilities of a physical body which has been used for many years. I say to you, therefore: Face the future with joy and know that it holds for you renewed opportunity, and later a re-adjustment of your time and interests which will permit you the leisure for deepened understanding and an increased usefulness in service. There is much that you can do and much in which you can assist me. Time will show you the ways and means. Have patience.
It will, I believe, aid you in the relinquishing process and help you to readjust your life to time and circumstance if you will ponder upon the five energies which are dominant in your life expression during this incarnation.
As you know, your rays—soul and personality—are the first and fifth; this in itself presents a problem, for it produces a preponderance of force upon the line of the major first ray. Fortunately for you, it was the aspect of organisation and the tendency to the occult life which were expressed through these energies and not the destroyer aspect or the over-critical mind, as might have been the case. You are not destructive; your outstanding qualities, if I might so express it, have been the power to organise and rule, and also love of the hidden realities.
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Your mental body has been outstandingly a fourth-ray one, giving you a love of harmony which has aided you in organisation rule, a love of beauty which enabled you to see the real, and a discrimination which has enabled you to gather around yourself that which unfolded beauty to you—books and beautiful things. But it also gave you, as it ever does, a spirit of conflict, urging you forward to fresh victories in the cause of harmony.
Your astral body has been governed by the second ray, and, from certain points of view, this has been the most powerful influence in your personality equipment; it has been the balancing factor to the first-ray line energy, expressed by your soul and personality rays. It has linked you powerfully (and this should interest and cheer you) with the Masters M. and K.H. Who together form a definite "unit of service" in the work of the Hierarchy at this time.
Your physical body is on the third Ray of Active Intelligence. This has given you your capacity to work upon the physical plane, to handle money (though not in your own interests) and has tied you in closely with the material life of your environment, in a curiously symbolic manner. Ponder on this.
You will be able to enlarge upon these ideas yourself from your knowledge of the ray tendencies and qualities, and you will find it of real interest to study the problem. My suggestion would be that you study the effect of this ray equipment upon your immediate environment. Later we will go into this matter in greater detail. Your rays, therefore, are:
1. The soul ray—the first Ray of Will or Power.
2. The personality ray—the fifth Ray of Concrete Science.
3. The ray of the mental body—the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict.
4. The ray of the astral body—the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.
5. The ray of the physical body—the third Ray of Active Intelligence.
February 1938
BROTHER OF OLD:
You have lately been given work which will constitute for you an integrating point. Much can be done by you through [403] quiet thought, the pouring out of love and of the first ray strength which you are so capable of giving, through the medium of your soul ray. On this opportunity to serve I would have you ponder deeply and reflect. The way of service is opening up to you, as I indicated to you in my last instructions, and your cooperation is welcome and needed. Adjustments are going on with rapidity in your life and the processes of living will steadily simplify for you, if you so choose and if you mould the future by the impress of your soul.
It has been interesting to note how, in your case, the fourth ray mental body (which is a part of your equipment) has used its force in harmony far more often than in conflict, as is the effect in the majority of your brothers' lives. This is due to the first ray activity of your soul which has resolved the conflict in harmony. Most of the conflict in your life has been the result of the activity of your astral body (working under second ray influence) with a reaction upon your third ray physical body. A close relation between the second and the third rays often works out in difficulty, for they express two different ways of building. This I will take up in greater detail later.
I would like to call attention to the fact that many of your co-disciples are functioning with fourth ray mental bodies. This provides a most interesting reason why you were all chosen to work at the dissipation of glamour. The astral plane is the plane of duality, of the pairs of opposites, and it is the interplay of these opposites, plus the energies released by the individual, which has, during the ages, built up the world glamour. Harmony through Conflict is the characteristic and result of fourth ray activity. It expresses itself in fullness on the fourth plane where the major duality of the Spiritual Triad and the threefold personality meet, blend and resolve into a unity. I would commend this thought to you for pondering and reflection; it has a definite bearing upon group activity in connection with group dispelling of world glamour. The fourth ray mental bodies of the members will facilitate this task.
You, having rays one, four and five active in your equipment, can see where your work dovetails into the picture.
I have not much in the way of personal instruction to give you at this time. The production of a creative adjustment of [404] the imminent changes in your life and the establishing of yourself as a renewed centre of force in whatever environment claims your soul's attention will be adequate for your full spiritual employment, will it not, my brother?
I would have you, however, ponder on the following facts.
1. Soul energy is, for you, focussed in the astral body.
2. Personality force is focussed in the mental body.
We will leave the work of meditation as it is at present along with the continuance of the review of Joy. May Joy, indeed, rest upon you and enable you to go in peace.
February 1939
MY BROTHER AND FELLOW WORKER:
I am not analysing your personality forces, particularly your astral force as I had suggested doing, because I gave you a sufficiently complete analysis in my last instruction. What I there indicated is all you need at this time. Later, I may perhaps elaborate, but at present you have all you need to know in order to carry on satisfactorily. In humility and in strength to love lies your release, my brother, and this I know you realise.
This year has been one of supreme difficulty, has it not, and the end is not immediate. One of the major lessons which all disciples have to master before initiation becomes possible, is that of steady persistence in the face of all that seeks to produce difficulty. Your personal problem is enhanced and becomes exceedingly complex because of the reactions of your immediate associates and your strenuous endeavour to lift all that you possibly can off their shoulders. It becomes, therefore, a lesson in group activity and hence most valuable. Lift not too much, my brother. It is the right of their souls to learn the same lessons as you have had to learn and an over-pitiful heart is not always the most helpful of possessions. A loving heart is always helpful. You learnt much in your past incarnation along this line and learnt satisfactorily. Take not away from others this right to stand alone by too great a display of that shielding love which your powerful astral body so easily and so selflessly can express. Let them stand up to the issues of the soul which are brought to their attention through the medium of the material [405] lesson, and thus enable them to enter upon their next life better equipped to love, to work and to live unselfishly.
Your one way out is to be focussed constantly in the soul, remembering that, as you achieve this alignment and contact, the soul has its major point of contact with your personality, via your astral body. This is for you a blessing, even when it constitutes a problem. Perhaps you will grasp what I am seeking to convey to you if I say that this relation was established by the intelligent will of your soul in order to stiffen your astral reactions with first ray energy and colour them with that detached and isolated strength which is the main characteristic of the first ray. The intent was to make you strong in what had been your weakest point. Detachment, strongly felt in love (for forget not that the first ray is only the first sub-ray of the great cosmic ray of Love) is the factor which will bring release and understanding, not only to you but to all around you. The aspect of devotion which the astral body so easily expresses must be transmuted into detached but selfless love. Remember that true love has sometimes to stand aside and look on peacefully whilst others learn their lessons—a thing hard indeed for you to do, brother of mine.
All I would ask you to do along the line of meditation is a simple voiced act of consecration to the service of the soul which is, in the last analysis, the service of humanity and of the Hierarchy. Such is the sequence. Do this prior to participating in the group meditation. Let the personality identify itself with the soul, detaching itself deliberately from all other contacts, by an act of the will and (from that point on) let the soul respond by sounding the O.M. three times as it "takes possession" of the personality for service.
You think with clarity, my brother, when the emotions of others do not overwhelm you and sweep your astral body into unison with theirs. Refuse then to be overwhelmed and regard not yourself as failing in some respect when others fail to meet the issues as they should. The reactions of others are not your responsibility. It is your responsibility to give them strength and detachment. Shoulder not, therefore, responsibilities which are not yours. This is one of the hardest lessons an initiate has to learn before he can be admitted as an active worker into the Hierarchy of Love.
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Life holds for you fresh changes. Be not dismayed, for those changes indicate an open door and a wider field for loving service.
NOTE: This disciple stands steady in the Tibetan's Ashram.
To G. S. S.
March 1935
BROTHER OF MINE:
I take up definite work with you in a spirit of expectancy because of your real sensitivity. I take it up also with a recognition that as we work together we must proceed with due care and real caution. We must work definitely and deliberately with a technique which will eventuate in sound foundations.
You are in this group for two reasons: First, your enthusiastic endeavour and the adjustments which your soul has forced you to make in your daily life attracted my attention and earned for you the right to a more specialised and individual training. Secondly, you possess a definite gift of healing and this must be cultivated, because it is consecrated and because it holds for you the secret of your real field of service.
One of the first questions you would ask me if we stood face to face would be: What is the thing I need most? What must I do in order to be released to greater service and deeper understanding? I would say to you in all earnestness, my brother, that for you will come an increased expansion of consciousness as you learn to conserve energy and rightly to utilise time. You are a good conductor of force and of the pranic elements and through you unimpeded (relatively speaking) soul force can flow. But, as yet, it serves only to intensify the atoms of your body and head, and to make a violent impact upon all those with whom you are associated. It works out in a form of benevolent dominance, and drives you before it, rather than being utilised by you. Therefore, you have to learn to use the inflowing force, and to turn it into constructive channels. You need to be more occupied with those whom you can help, than with your own reactions—both good and bad. Surrounding you, in your own setting and among those familiar to you, are many [407] whom you could help and release. They fear you, however, and fear what you have because of the forcefulness of your approach to them; they hide their true need for fear that you touch them with too powerful a hand. You are too occupied with the mental formulations of that which you know to be true and with a precise statement of that which is so precious to you; and you have not, therefore, given the needed time and the heart of love to the deep need of those you meet—of everyone you meet, my brother. All need love and understanding, and this they need more than clearly enunciated occult truths, no matter how true or wonderful. Give them love and understanding. The impartation of the Ageless Wisdom will come later and naturally when you have proved to them that you "stand in spiritual being."
For you, there must now be a period of steadfast stabilising of that which has been acquired, and a gentle outgoing to your world of friends. Let them reveal themselves to you. They will, when patient loving gentleness meets them all the time. Inclusiveness must take the place of your sixth ray one-pointedness, for that one-pointedness has in it the quality of piercing, and this focussed work you have carried forward long enough. Your sixth ray has also given you a sensitive emotional nature which means a solar plexus too active in its functioning. This you know well. Upon this, the heart quality must supervene. More I will give you later, but the above hints will give you that which you need, if you ponder duly upon my words, and resent not what I say. My problem is to train each of you so that youserve the group without personality hindrances and separativeness....
The work of this particular group cannot really begin until the personalities of the members are subordinated to group purpose, and trained to be pure channels. This is a great objective, my brother, therefore, be not discouraged, but work, live and above all, love.
December 1935
BROTHER OF MINE:
You have been so short a time in this group that it is not my purpose now (nor would it be wise) to change the work earlier outlined for you. Not yet have you established the needed routine and rhythm. It is never my intention to be authoritative nor do I ever demand obedience. I but make suggestions and leave it to the student to apply himself or not as he may choose and as his earnestness may dictate. But I do observe his work and its results. May I, therefore, say one thing? I would like to see in you a more steady application to the meditation work. Seek as far as possible to be regular in its daily effectiveness. Let nothing but that which is unavoidable interfere with your quiet time in the Presence. Here perhaps is a point where you could discipline yourself somewhat more effectively.
You have grasped rapidly and well the point I made in my last instruction anent your reaching people. Your service must be one of potent loving contact. Your method should be that of a deep interest in them, more than an interest in what you may have to give them of an occult and intellectual nature. Their need is the thing that is of importance. The effort to understand these people (with their reticences and silences, their weaknesses and strengths, their aspirations and their failures, their devotions and their customs) and to enter into their consciousnesses will give you the training which you need and will enable you later to be a server whom we, the teachers on the inner side, can more fully use.
You are on the "lighted Way," my brother, and your soul will carry you through to a more assured understanding and a more established peace. This you oft have realised you need.
Give the next few months to a close study of all the group instructions. Attempt to master their contents and to be familiar with the group aims, objectives and this preliminary teaching. Seek to comprehend more intelligently what is this group experiment in which you are aiding. It is group work in which you are engaged and not simply undertaking a mode of personal training.... The individual angle of this work is of no importance, except in so far as it may affect the group as a whole. This is the point to be grasped by you and by several of the group members.
And, my brother, may I add one parting word? Aim at demonstrating happiness. Be joyous in your work and service. Be not so intense, but go happily along the lighted Way. Such is my prayer for you.
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March 1936
MY BROTHER:
The task of blending with any group is ever a hard one, and has been specially so in your case. This I foresaw, but I saw also that you would make a real effort so to do, and I have not been disappointed. You need, however, a still longer period of adjustment before I dare give you either the meditation or the personal teaching which I hope sometime to give to you. This is not owing to anything that you might consider a fault, but is due primarily to your exceeding sensitivity to soul stimulation.
In cases such as yours there is need to proceed with exceeding care. There is an emotional and physical balance and rhythm in you which is very easily upset. This is due to the tremendous potency of your etheric body. This vital body of yours is of such strength, and carries so much energy upon the higher levels of the astral plane and also from the lower mental, that it upsets certain balancing factors in the physical body. Thus the task of any teacher working with you is tremendously complicated. You both feel too intensely, and move and speak with too great a consequent rapidity. It is a real problem for me (does this surprise you, my brother?) how to make clear to you your need for slowness. How can I, with my clearer vision of you and my knowledge of your subtler bodies and their condition, enable you to grasp it also? I cannot do more than be very guarded in what I give to you of stimulation and of attention, for your reactions are so rapid and so violent. I have to judge with care what I ask you to do because the effects are so prompt, and contact with my energy so often produces in you over-stimulation and excitation, with fatigue as a result.
Perhaps I can help you most by saying that, owing to your ray combinations and your background in other lives, your interest is more mental than aspirational. Your keen and active mind (which is, however, often an inaccurate mind) is swung into intense interest with great facility; it is most easily fertilised and has in it the promise of being both powerful and constructive, later. But at this time, you cannot handle the force that comes through to your physical body, and which is directed [410] by your mind. Coming from the mind, it indicates, therefore, the force of a rapidly integrating personality, but this force, as you do not yet live a full life of service, is too much for you. When you serve more truly and definitely, your problem will be solved.
Your problem also is largely the problem of the right use of time; your life will be straightened out considerably, and a great deal of your physical over-stimulation disappear when you use time rightly.
My brother of olden time, you use so much time on that which is futile from the angle of world need and of the true and basic essentials. When I say this I would have you, however, remember that I am not suggesting that you should alter your technique of daily living, nor that your home or your responsibilities should be handled with less care and good results. I am referring definitely to an inner attitude towards time which you do not as yet hold.
Upon what do you place your emphasis in life and how can I illustrate to you my point? You state that you are failing to find the time to do your meditation work correctly. Why should this be, my brother? You may not be able to do it the first thing each morning before breakfast, but many people cannot. Yet surely, if your essentials are right, you could demand thirty minutes at some point early in the day for your soul contact. The structure of your daily living will not break down if, for instance, you do not answer the telephone during that period and permit yourself that time of quiet, delegating others to deal with the telephone. You need to readjust your values.
As regards your meditation, I will give you one that is very brief. I will ask you, also, to cease meditating in the head and for a while to meditate in the heart, remembering that the heart centre is between the shoulder blades and not in the physical heart. Do not, however, permit yourself to dwell upon the fact of the centres or their locality. Simply drop your mental intensity and centre your consciousness lower in the upper part of the body. Do not analyse the situation, or the location or the purpose or the why and the wherefore too much. Simply, my brother, do as you are told, knowing that I may perhaps know a little more than you.
[411]
1. Imagine yourself as the soul, using the lower man as an instrument.
2. Imagine the soul as working through and energising the centre of love in your being. Relax then and sink down into the soul consciousness which is love. Let love be the keynote of your meditation.
3. Then pour out love
a. Upon your immediate family circle.
b. Upon those with whom you associate in your social life.
c. Upon your group brothers.
d. Upon the New Group of World Servers.
e. Upon the world.
You will note how this involves a steadily imagined establishment of consciousness, in love. Do this sequentially, quietly, and definitely, with no hurry.
4. Then ponder for the next six months upon the following seed thoughts:
First month............ Love—"I tread the Way of Love. That Love irradiates my life."
Second month....... Understanding—"The way of Love is the lighted Way."
Third month........... Integration—"The way of Love leads to the Presence of the Self. That Self am I."
Fourth month......... Contact—"I see that Presence as myself. I merge myself in Light."
Fifth month............ Service—"The sons of men must all be led to tread the Way of Love."
Sixth month........... The Plan—"The Plan for man has three great goals. The revelation of love; the illumination of the mind; the evocation of the will."
The major task, however, which I set you will be most difficult for you to do, but I ask you most definitely to do it in the interests of your own development and, above all, in your growth and service both to the world and to your group brothers.
[412]
Speak little, and endeavour to work each day with a conscious, definite programme, thus learning to organise your time to the best advantage, and leaving more time for service and quiet thought. Be slow to speak, slow to move, slow to decide, slow to form opinions.
There is much to be done by this group of servers but I cannot begin to use the group until certain personality adjustments have been made. Make rapid progress, my brother, by slow stages.
October 1937
MY BROTHER:
It has seemed to me (as I have studied you) that you might again begin to meditate simply. But there must be no intensity, and you should assume only the attitude of quiet reflection, which is meditation. No breathing exercises of any kind should be followed by you, but just the following simple form of soul recognition, yearning after the presence of God, and an aspiration towards spiritual love.
1. Think of yourself as a child of God, loved by the Father, and a part of His life.
2. Dedicate yourself, as a personality, to the service of your fellowmen, which is the service of love and of God.
3. Then reflect quietly and peacefully and happily upon the seed thoughts, taking one each month, as outlined in the preceding communication. This time, however, use the word "friendship" during the third month instead of the word "integration."
I am going to tell you the governing rays of your life equipment, but please do not elaborate upon them in your mind, as I am not anxious for you to focus any attention upon the vehicles through which your soul seeks expression. I am simply stating them in order to bring your information into line with that of your group brothers. Give, therefore, ten minutes each day, and no more, to quiet reflection within the limits of the assigned meditation. At the close of the next six months we will then see what has transpired and what will be possible. The following is a statement as to your rays:
[413]
1. The soul ray—the seventh Ray of Order or Magic.
2. The personality ray—the sixth Ray of Devotion.
3. The ray of the mental body—the first Ray of Power or Will. Hence the facility with which you can bring in energy.
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:
During the next six months we must decide whether you are able to cope with this planned work or not. If at the end of this next period of study it is apparent that you should not do any of the work then—for the sake of group integrity and the purposed undertaking of healing—it will be necessary for you to drop out. Karmically, you have a relation to me and to this group of aspirants; sensitively you are adequate to the task; aspirationally, you desire to do it. Wherein then lies the difficulty? What causes the over-intensification of the glandular system?
The answer lies in three factors, which I will put frankly before you, leaving you to accept or reject my suggestions as may seem best to you.
First (and above everything else) an intense attitude to life. You live always at a point of tension. Such points of tension come, and should come, to all disciples for it is at such critical moments that the real growth appears and true decisions are made, but you are always at such a point and never know when to relax. Even when amusing yourself, you are tense; when resting, you are tenser still. You could learn relaxation if you so desired, but this you do not really seek to do, and the question is whether you would practise relaxation even if you knew how to do so.
Secondly, you have an inability to eliminate the non-essentials out of your daily life. You do so many things that you need not do and fail to realise that perhaps it does not truly matter whether they are done or no. One of your major requirements, [414] if you are ever to function as a disciple, is the sense of spiritual values. If you can learn this lesson, you will then occupy yourself with the things of lasting moment and not with the ephemeral activities which net you no true results.
Thirdly, you take many things in life far too seriously, such as the work of this group. You think about these things too intently, and you handle the group work, your daily life, and your home problems, plus all your life interests, with too heavy a hand. There are two things which every disciple must some day learn, my brother. One is to cultivate the ability to "sit light in the saddle" (to use an old proverbial injunction) and the other is to develop a sense of humour, a real (not forced) capacity to laugh at oneself and with the world. This is one of the compensations which comes to those who can succeed in working in the light upon the mental plane. When you can do this, the constant tension under which you labour will adjust itself.
How, my brother, does this tension come about in your case? It is based upon an inner inherent ability to touch soul levels and thus to be open to the inflow of soul force. This feeds the various centres with life and energy, and these—in their turn—galvanise the glandular system into activity. When, however, there is not adequate use of spiritual energy, it gets "banked up" in the centres (if I may use such an inadequate expression) and this produces bad results. Your throat centre receives the bulk of this energy and the solar plexus, and hence your excessive physical plane activity and nervous energy, and hence also your tendency, via the throat centre, to much speech and vivacious talk. The heart centre and the centre between the eyebrows should receive more of this energy and this would lead to a balancing of the endocrine system and greater freedom in spontaneous service. What aspects of your life, therefore, can be the recipients of spiritual force? Where can you serve spiritually and thus release this banked up spiritual energy? It is definitely energy with which we are dealing, as we live and serve, and this spiritual energy must be used for group betterment and for the meeting of group conditions. I refer not here to this group but to all and any kind of right group activity which may come your way. How can you use this force [415] in service so that it is not accumulated but made to serve a spiritual purpose? That is your problem and a major question with many disciples.
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