SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES (Continued) - PART 10
First: You are in this group for two reasons. You have a strong karmic link with me, which you have ever recognised and which you unduly emphasise. Second: You are at a most critical point on the Path of Probation, for you can, if so inclined, take those steps which will land you on the Path of Discipleship. Third: You need to have in mind the fact that your life—up to three years ago—has been an exemplification of excessive duality. In this dual life, your emphasis has been laid on "making good" on the physical plane in the world of business; paralleling this, but divorced from it, has been an intense inner life of aspiration and devotion to the Great Ones, and later to myself, a working chela of the Great White Lodge.
You have managed curiously to keep these two lines of activity free from contact with each other. Your devotion served not to prevent mistakes or the misuse of the worldly opportunities, nor did your active worldly life seem to affect in any way your fiery devotion and persistence towards the goal.
This dual activity must be brought to an end and your aim must be to bring about in yourself the at-one-ment, or the unification of the aims and purposes which have hitherto been divergent. Mistake me not, my brother: The ultimate objective of the physical plane life has been to lay the gains in business at the disposal of the Great Ones, but this objective has not coloured your technique. You will know today how just this criticism is. Four years ago, I could not have thus addressed you, for you would not have recognised the justice of my remarks.
Your problem has been complicated (as is the problem of all disciples who stand on the verge of acceptance) by the force of your ray impulses, and by the difficulty of the era in which you live and the stage whereon you deliberately have chosen to play your part. You have three years in which to make the effort by means of which you can become an accepted disciple, when you return again to this earth. By this I do not mean that you are to pass over at the age of fifty-six. I am speaking of the establishing of a rhythm which will be strong enough and vital enough to produce the needed fusion of soul and personality. We who teach, watch and guide the esoteric development of man, know that unless a certain measure of fusion is established by the time fifty-six years of age is attained, it is seldom established later. After that age, a man may hold to the point achieved and foster his aspiration but [597] the dynamic submergence of the personality in the will and life of the soul is rare after that time. When reached prior to the age of fifty-six, then subsequent growth and unfoldment on the Path of Discipleship is surely possible.
The two suggestions which I seek to make and on which I ask you to work for the next twelve months are as follows:
First: Forget your karmic relationship with me and give no time in your thoughts to the Tibetan. This will be hard for you to do, but remember that I am only one who stands by and who offers opportunity, seeking for those who will lose themselves in service. Your sixth ray devotion has turned your effort towards astral recognition more than to unity and at-one-ment in the great work.
Second: Work steadily at the problem of entering into the pure white light of your own soul. How shall this be done? Let us be practical and outline certain things to be accomplished during the rest of this year.
1. Refrain from reading the books for which I am responsible. You have steeped yourself in the teaching they contain for years. Now practise the truths learnt thereby. Instead, study with close attention The Bhagavad Gita, and use that as your textbook of guidance.
2. Instead of studying my writings, will you serve your fellow disciples by making (on their behalf) a close study of the psychology of the intuition? Ascertain the best that man has to say about it and prepare for your brothers a compilation on the subject and a summation of the significance of the intuition and its mode of unfoldment. Seek the definitions of the intuition and collect them together for use and, likewise, make a useful bibliography of the literature on the subject. Each group of my disciples has somewhat to contribute, and the group to which you belong should ascertain much upon the subject of the intuition.
3. Follow the breathing exercises with attention, bearing ever in mind the thought that they aid in the unification of soul and body and in the purification of the sheaths.
4. In your meditation each morning, eliminate again all forms which turn the attention to the Great Ones or to [598]myself, your Tibetan brother. For a year, centre your consciousness on the light of your own soul, and keep your meditation very simple.
That you may learn to walk in the light that pours forth from your own soul is the earnest wish of your fellow worker, the Tibetan.
July 1933
MY BROTHER:
The way of the aspirant climaxes at times, and might be described as a series of steady growth cycles, accentuated at intervals by definite periods of forced development wherein one limitation after another is forcibly removed, by you yourself. All limitations and hindrances have to go. You have for years been like a man standing in a room with his back to the window—a window that so sadly needed cleaning that the light in the room was dim and only partially diffused.
You are today like a man who has turned around and walked over to the window, and then has cleaned a small circle through which you look. You can see that which is around much more clearly. The room is better lighted, and you are now more clearly aware of what you need to do for yourself and the room. This is much, my brother, for you have done it all within the last twelve months. Before that time your accomplishment seemed doubtful, not from bad intent but because you had become accustomed to your position and attitude and to the room in which you lived. Your knowledge of what lay outside was theoretical but not of a practical nature.
A brief period of time remains in which to finish cleaning the window and illumining the room, thereby associating yourself with the life outside the window. I believe you can do it if you desire nothing for the separated self; if you train yourself to see things and, above all, people as they are and in a true perspective. People are not what you want them to be and they live also in rooms with darkened windows. When you look through the window there is nothing to be seen as it really is. All is distorted. Your problem is the problem of understanding the glamour and illusion in which you perforce have to live, and so to work through the glamour that you can see life truly.
[599]
Be not in any way discouraged, brother of old, if you find the upward way stiff and hard to climb. You are in good company and are not alone. Out of the present situation, true wisdom is born. Before the full light of the sun can shine at the time of dawn, there has to be the dissipation of the mist—a mist which distorts and hides. This is done not by any function of the mist itself, but by the growth in power of the rays of the rising sun. Therefore, for you there must be the steady growth of the light of your own soul, fostered by meditation, expressed in selfless service, and increasing in radiance through the intensification of your soul's life. Live, therefore, as a soul and forget the personality. Give not so much time to the consideration of the faults and mistakes of the past. Self-depreciation is not necessarily a sign of spiritual growth. It is often the first result of a soul contact and means the revelation of personality limitations covering many years. That has a temporary value, provided you again turn your eyes to the soul. Forgetting the things that lie behind let the light of your soul lead you where it will. Be, as I have told another of my disciples in the group, the sannyasin—living in the world of men, yet having your interests in the world where the Great Ones work. You are not alone. You have found your own company of souls. You are not walking in the dark, for there is a light upon your way. Stay within the radius of that light and wander not down the accustomed by-ways. These words may sound to those who read them platitudes, applicable to anyone. You yourself know, however, how intensely applicable they are to you.
You can resume the study of my instructions and writings but must preserve a balanced attitude. There are other things to be done than simply to be a devotee of the Tibetan brother. Follow the meditation I here give you....
March 1934
MY BROTHER:
For you I have this time no instructions. I must know first that you have cleaned another window pane. That also which you earlier cleansed and to which I referred in my last communication is again befogged, not so much from the accumulation [600] of grime, but by the cold within, which produces condensation. Think this out. Seek out your motives, for they are at the root of all your trouble, and glamour not yourself with the belief that you are animated by principle or are fighting for principle and thus occupied with truth.
You say that you report these facts and impressions to me and to the group, confident that you can safely turn to the teacher for confirmation or correction on any point. If in any respect you are proceeding along wrong lines, you want to know it and to modify your life in conformity with my wishes.
How you do love authority, my brother, and how you would like me to save you a lot of trouble and direct your way, and give you information as to what is right and wrong! But should I accede to your request and tell you what you want to know, what would be the result? You have been told what the situation was, and know clearly the grounds on which the communications were repudiated and you refused to accept it. What is the difference, when I tell you the same? If what is written or said coincides with your own ideas, how gladly would you catch hold of my words. But if they failed to do so, how easily you would argue that they were the words of someone else and deem that they had been brought through in error or coloured by personality reactions. Or you would accept them absolutely because I said them and thus bow to authority and leave your intuition still inactive. But I have no authority, my brother, nor have I ever claimed to have it.
In one case, you fail to grow in ability to stand alone and to make wise decisions based on intuitive recognition of reality; and in the other, the point of separativeness grows in strength.
What your teacher in the past, myself, may think is of small moment. What anyone else may think and say is of very small moment. What is of importance to you today is to see clearly, to speak truth to yourself and to walk in the light—a thing you never yet have done for any length of time. You report growth in abstract consciousness. You need not that growth. You need growth in clear cut thinking and in clear cut action. You are faced with the problem of yourself, and you will solve it only when you have freed yourself from personality impulses and from the glamour in which you habitually walk. Note, my [601] brother, the decision and clarity with which I thus address you. Note my style, for it is the same style as before, but I am carefully wording this communication so that you can clearly grasp my words. If you like the adjectival phrases of the communicator who has engrossed your attention lately, I would call you (in his style) a brother of dedicated emotions but poor intuitive mentality and a befogged aspirant. In all love, I say this to you and in an effort to arouse your attention.
As I said to all my disciples so I say to you: If you seek to work with me and will conform to group requirements, then I, on my side, will do what I can to aid you in your group work. All the work I assign to individuals in the group has but one aim in view—to enable them to work as a group for the good of the group. This, you have not done and the group work as a whole has been set back by you, for the group moves forward as a group; though the individuals may have grown, the group has not moved forward but has been held back the past six months by the situation for which you were largely responsible.
I refer not in this instruction to the problem of communications. Disciples are free to interest themselves in any number of groups and communicators. I refer to the problem of this particular situation which is simply that ofidentity. Forget this not, and confuse not the issue. It is not one of authority. It is one of identity. You are at liberty naturally as a disciple to receive communications from any source. But be sure not to confuse identities.
This situation in the group has caused me serious consideration. The good of the group is of prime importance. I am engaged in an experiment in this group work. It is not an easy one either for myself or for the group members. Shall I sacrifice the group to the glamour of one person? For, in the last analysis, others would not have been so influenced had you seen truly and had cooperated in preserving group balance and had not interjected the problem of identities into this group work. I cannot continue to give you these instructions if you thus bring personality and separateness into the work. You are not asked to accept blindly all that you receive. But whilst in the group, you are asked to live up to group requirements and to work with the group unit, and to refrain from bringing your [602] personality problems of any kind into the group work. When you no longer care for the teaching and do not do that which is asked, it is your privilege to withdraw from the group work and so preserve the group unity. It isgroup unity for which I am working, and not your individual growth and stimulation. I speak thus with apparent harshness in an effort to bring to an end your years of personality fog and deep seated ambition. The two are allied.
Forget not either my earlier injunction to you that "There are other things to be done than to be a devotee of the Tibetan brother" or of the Tibetan and a spurious astral double.
Your key words are self-knowledge, lucidity and truth, and they must all be called into play at this time. Remember that your decision, if based on a choice between two Tibetans, will be a false one. Your problem is that of choosing between the teacher which we call the Personality and the teacher which we call the higher Self. Settle this problem in the light of the soul, and not through impulsive personality reactions.
July 1934
MY BROTHER:
When I think of you, it is with a sense of enquiry, of loving kindness and also with a sense of urgency. The years slip by; those who look on at the lives of aspirants have oft a sense of this urgency—an urgency that the aspirant seldom feels himself. Life has offered you much of opportunity for progress, but you entered life and built a body that has in it much crystallised material and a mental body of such rigidity that your problem (this incarnation) was—if I could use so inadequate a form of words—to smash what you yourself had constructed and used. You had to break your old thoughtforms of intrigue, of ambition and of power before you could be liberated for real service. Half a century has gone. The thoughtform of ambition has been broken and crippled but a sense of futility must not take its place. The thoughtform of power is weakening. The thoughtform of intrigue received a bad blow during the episode of glamour in the early spring. But the forms still persist. You stand before them bewildered, anxious to do the right thing, [603] blinded by the power of your own creations which shine with their own light, and blinded also by the blaze of light emanating from your own soul and from the group soul. But blinded and, seemingly, helpless.
No one can help you, my brother. You yourself must let all things go, and become "the little child," spoken of in the Bible. It is not for me or any teacher to tell you what to do. For one thing, you would do it, and in doing it learn naught. From within yourself must come the incentive, and from yourself must emanate the clear wisdom, and the clean cut action which will eventually bring your release. What, therefore, can any of us do? Gather not from the above that I or others feel that for you there is no release this life. Naught can arrest at this stage the work of your own soul. Only the urgency of the times incites any of us to desire that that release should be accomplished as rapidly as may be in order to set you free to serve.
Perhaps the way in which I can best help you is to give you a meditation which will enable you to clarify the field ofmotives. Your life motive to tread the Path is sound, but e'en that motive is tainted by the ancient rhythms. Your other motives are oft beautiful, but spoilt by the underlying distortions of the concrete mind which incites to ambition, to love of power and to deviousness in approach to any action of any kind.
Therefore, for you, simplicity and clarity as to the causes of all that you do are essential and needed. At sunrise, at noon, at sunset and at night—four times a day—follow the procedure outlined below:
1. Sound the Sacred Word three times, breathing it out as a soul through the three bodies.
2. Say then, as you stand in the light of the soul.
"I stand before the judgment seat of my own soul.
I stand in the light that comes from that divine source.
I seek to walk in truth, sincerity and love."
3. Then ask yourself the following three questions:
a. That which I have accomplished during the past few hours, has it been clearly understood by me?
b. Have I acted simply and sanely and with wise direction?
[604]
c. Why did I act and speak and write in this particular connection? What prompted the specific deed?
4. Having thus analysed the activities of the past few hours, then dedicate them to the service of the Master. The doing of this will eliminate much thought and work of a personal intent.
This sounds simple and almost elementary but if you carry this meditation forward for the next three months, doing no other, you will find that the whole problem of motive will clarify for you. That is what you want, is it not, my brother? Well I know it. Your basic life intent causes me no concern. It is your life technique that lies at the root of all the difficulty. It is governed so oft by expediency. Give not so much time to intricate and devious thought. Seek to live mentally much more simply. Ask and look for nothing for the separated self and eliminate all thought along the lines of lower self endeavour. The group stands by you in loving helpfulness and readiness to aid. So do I. This is no idle word but a statement of fact that is one upon which you can depend.
January 1935
MY BROTHER:
You have done much sound thinking the past six months and the fruit of your meditation is being garnered. The meditation that I gave you last July can now be stopped, but the three questions which were incorporated in the third point must be used by you each evening as a form of review. You still need a period for the quiet consideration of the impelling motives for daily action. Right motive and a clear vision of the sources of action are still imperative needs of yours. They will lead to right activity, truthful thought and right speech. But you have made progress, my brother, and have no cause for depression or to waste time in regret over the past. The only regret that is justifiable is based on failure to learn the lessons of failure. You, however, are learning.
There are, as well you know, still certain mental activities belonging to your old state of mind which seethe beneath the surface of your life. These, too, must be transmuted and it is for you to discover the method. I can but indicate need [605] and opportunity. As for the method you should follow in meditation, I would suggest the procedure outlined below:
1. Achieve alignment and then raise the consciousness as high as possible. Assume then the attitude of the soul.
2. Sound the Sacred Word, breathing it out throughout the entire personality.
3. Ponder next upon the Lord's Prayer as part of your group work.
4. Seek by the power of your thought and through the outpouring of love to contact your co-disciples and group brothers. This is for you important, for it not only aids in group integration but it serves to decentralise you from the centre of your own stage.
5. Then endeavour to contemplate or to realise yourself as the soul, as divine, as the Christ within. This will take the highest concentration of which you are capable.
6. Then say the following with thought behind the words:
"I stand before the judgment seat of my own soul. I am that soul. All love and light am I. I serve the world and lose myself in service. This is my life and this is the way that I will tread until the Day-be-with-us."
7. Sound the Word slowly, sending it forth in love to your group brothers.
August 1935
MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:
You are still walking in a fog. Glamour still surrounds you. You are still self-deceived and I cannot reach you at this time.
February 1936
MY BROTHER:
When last I wrote I feared that it might be the last communication I should be able to make to you. But during the past six months some of the glamour with which you were surrounded has disappeared. Much still remains. However, your successful attempt to see with greater clarity encourages [606] me to write to you as usual and again to supervise your work. This I have not done for six months. Forget not, that when an older and, therefore, more powerful disciple turns his attention to you, the resulting stimulation will work two ways. One of them will be the intensification of the glamour, so bear this in mind for seven weeks after receiving this communication.
The way for you is not yet the "lighted Way." You have surrounded yourself with so much fog and with such a dense cloud of self-generated and self-motivated thoughtforms that the light only pierces through in places. As yet, there is no steady stream or lighted Way. Therefore, for the present the most appropriate name for that part of the Path of Discipleship that you are treading is the Way of Sacrifice—the sacrifice of your own thoughts, of your own wishes, aims and dreams. It means for you the treading of the rocky way of duty, of dharma and of clear decision. Therefore, for the next six months, will you take the following words into your meditation?
1st month—Duty.
2nd month—Dharma, or responsible obligation.
3rd month—Discrimination.
4th month—Dispassion.
5th month—Decision.
6th month—Destiny.
You will note how each word has the same initial letter and hence will give you facility in remembrance. Ponder deeply on these words and, later, write an article in which you will link these words synthetically and sequentially, and so provide an article on Discipleship which could be of service to others. You have ability to write; therefore, at present serve through writing.
Keep your eyes on the light ahead. Speak not of yourself. Forego all planning at present, but perform action with detachment and with skill. Disperse the clouds around you by the dynamic light of your own soul, and in order to do this, seek greater and more rapid alignment. One hint I will give you. When tempted to descend into the clouds of your own thoughtforms and into the weaving of your own material plans, send out your thought to me.
[607]
August 1936
MY BROTHER:
In my last instruction I gave you certain suggestions. Perhaps the way I can best help you at this time is to list them for you clearly and concisely, and ask you—in the silence of your heart and the light of your soul—to answer them. I told you:
1. To sacrifice your own thoughts, wishes, aims and dreams. Have you done this?
2. To follow the rocky way of duty, of dharma, and clear decision. Have you done this?
3. To keep your eyes on the Light ahead or in the distance. Have you done this?
4. To preserve silence as regards yourself. Have you done this?
5. To forego all plans. Have you done this?
6. To disperse the clouds of glamour around you by the dynamic light of your own soul. Have you done this?
7. To send out your thoughts to me. Have you done this?
Two of these questions, I will answer for you, but I will not enlarge upon them. First: You have not sent out your thoughts to me. I have not registered one thought. You have sent out devotion, desire, demands, aspiration, longings and wishes—but not one clear thought. Why? Think this out, my brother.
You have made plans.
Will you re-read my last instruction to you and again take this as my message for you? Will you carry on with the same meditation for another six months? Upon the work done during the coming six months will depend much. Send out your thoughts to me and I will recognise them. Learn the distinction between thought and desire. The two are not clearly defined in your mind.
February 1937
MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:
I told you in my last instruction that upon the work done during the coming six months much would depend. You have done the work aright and your feet are set more firmly upon the Path, and much of the old glamour has been dissipated. I would [608] have you feel encouraged, for I am encouraged over you. Even a year ago I felt that you might have to wait for another life period before you could fill the niche in this group of my disciples that I seek to see you fill. I know now that I need not wait so indefinitely. Four times I have registered from you a clear thought—and this has never happened before in your life. The reason has been that you have relinquished your plans and your personality scheming, and thus have dispersed in a measure the miasmas of your tortuous thoughts, based on personality ambition and the vagaries of the concrete mind. I can reach you now, my brother—a thing hitherto impossible. Up till now I have had to reach you through A.A.B.
Let not the recognition of this fact induce a fresh glamorous attitude and my words thus form the germ of a new field of glamour. I speak this warning, for you have such an innate tendency to be glamoured.
The injunctions which I have given you in my two previous communications remain still the basis for your personality life. Naught is changed, except in you, and you must guard against relapse. Not yet are you occultly "established" upon the Way; not yet are you expert in the recognising and the dissipation of glamour. Therefore, proceed with due care.
I would have you take the Rules of the Road and study them. Take them as the theme of your reflection during the coming six months and, at the close, give your interpretation of each Rule for the helping of your fellow disciples. This is the task which I assign you.
September 1937
MY BROTHER:
A fresh cycle of work is opening up before you at this time, and this is the result of the attention which you have paid to my instructions and to the response which you have given to the effort of your soul to release your personality from glamour. May I point out to you that very often, after a certain measure of glamour has been overcome (as is the case with you), that illusion can then step in? I would warn you against two such illusions:
[609]
a. The illusion that glamour no longer can hold sway over you. Constant watchfulness will be necessary.
b. The illusion of selection and reward. To this, all sixth ray aspirants are more than usually prone.
Will you also forgive my pointing out to you that your entering upon this particular field of service and your passing through the door to this cycle of work is for you definitely a following of the line of least resistance. You can render good service if you follow instructions with care, but it is the opportunity to serve which is the result to which I referred in my opening paragraph and not the specific type. Ponder on this, for if you understand that which I seek to impress upon you, your service will be greatly helped and your usefulness increased.
Having made your choice and decision, my problem now is how to help you to make good in the future which is opening up before you. My two suggestions may surprise you, for they will not be at all along the line you anticipate.
First of all, I would say to you: Take not yourself so seriously. The world still proceeds upon its way and the planet continues to revolve whether you serve or not. Lower the intensity of your vibration. You can serve and your service is needed. All servers are needed at this time. You have been through a drastic disciplining and should have learnt much; but you will nullify your usefulness and shorten your period of service through your intense earnestness. Remember, you have to offset constantly your sixth ray personality. Will you comprehend me if I say that you never evidence any imagination or excitement except along the lines of discipleship, and that then you evidence too much? I will give you some verses later on in this instruction, upon which I will ask you to ponder and reflect, not in your meditation (for I would have you follow only your group meditation) but during the day. Be balanced, my brother, and remember that work for us embraces many things, e'en hours of relaxation, and it most certainly necessitates the use of the discrimination in ascertaining the essentials and separating them from the non-essentials.
The second thing I would say to you may surprise you more than the above which, perchance, you have at moments yourself suspected. I would say to you with emphasis: Love more your fellowmen. At present you love our work and service and the ideal more than you love your brothers. This is the reason why you are such a poor, such a very poor psychologist. You do not love enough. Every human being you meet you consider and approach from the angle of the work, and not because they are fellow pilgrims or people you can love and help. Yourself as a server and the work (as our work) looms large between you and your fellowmen and will definitely negate your usefulness. It is the "organisation spirit" and the "manipulative faculty" of the third ray executive. Our workers deal with souls, and not with the work. They are occupied in aiding individuals and, through individuals, the world. They do not occupy themselves with the form side. That, too, is ever properly regarded and attended to, but it is secondary. Youmake it primary.
Settle back, my brother. Love and serve; relax and live a normal, useful life. The fires of your own intensity and the heat of your own aspiration will otherwise burn so fiercely that no one can get near you. Take time to know people for themselves, and not for their possible availability in the work. Yet fall not over backwards as you attend to my instructions. Balance is ever, for the aspirant, a major objective.
The two sentences which I give to you for careful consideration are as follows:
"The fire that I create must heat, not burn; it must draw into its warmth the man who needs its heat; it must not thrust away, through fierceness, the seeking soul. It is the fire of love, and not the fire of my own aspiration."
"The service which I render must be to souls and not unto myself upon the Path. Thus shall I meet a need and, in forgetfulness of self and my own word and place, lead others towards the light."
I have not indicated to you the rays governing your personality vehicles, for I seek to place your interest, not in yourself but in others.
[611]
February 1938
MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:
I would recall to you certain remarks which I made in my last instruction. With your usual aptitude to select that which your personality prefers, and which intrigues your sense of sin (I say this with a smile, brother, but the dramatic glamour of the sixth ray person, working in the Piscean Christian age, loves public conviction of wrong doing) and, feeding your sense of drama, enables you to say: "Now I know," when you do not. You emphasised that which was obvious, and ignored the real things with which I sought to reach you. What were the points of real importance in my last communication to you? I will list them briefly:
1. The illusion of selection and reward to which, I warned you (as a sixth ray person) you were prone.
2. The opportunity to service.
3. To relax and lead a normal life.
You will note that none of these sentences came out of the two paragraphs which you felt were so important and which you emphasised in your papers and letters. Such is your present condition of glamour that the essential strikes you not. You see it not. Such is your present glamour, that it is with the greatest difficulty that I can reach you at this time. I am making the effort but, my brother, it looks to me that this will constitute my last effort to assist you, for if this instruction avails you not, there is nothing more that I can do.
An opportunity to serve and make a new start was offered to you. You were asked to help in some work which I initiated in 1919 (when I first contacted A.A.B. and began my work with her). The plans are made and the work is functioning. Yet you received not guidance from those who have sought to help you serve, and who opened the door of opportunity for you. You have endeavoured to initiate activities yourself, doing hastily and often inadequately the things you were asked to do. You were determined to find time for the things that your glamoured personality felt were important. You have chosen to select the work that you should do instead of cooperating in the service which you accepted. You have endeavoured to [612] form connections, unrelated to the work already undertaken and organised prior to your joining that particular group of workers who extended to you the invitation. You have tried to organise your own activities instead of cooperating in the work already begun and with which you were invited to cooperate—and with which you accepted affiliation. Your activities were paramount in your consciousness (in spite of protestations to the contrary) and the group activities were secondary.
I advised you to live normally and to relax your intensity, but you have lived abnormally and with an occult violence which has been damaging to you. You have functioned in a glamorous world of your own idea of service and of what should be done, but there has been no true cooperation with what is being done—only an interest in what your own over-active third ray tendency has sought to produce has engaged your deepest attention. Superficially you cooperate, basically you do not.
You have been glamoured by your own values and not by the group values. You have been side-tracked by many non-essential issues and you have not collaborated in my work or with those who are already integrated into the work that I am seeking to do. I am referring to myself in this communication to you, as your statements, and I believe your intent, have ever expressed devotion to me, your Tibetan teacher. You have sought to integrate those into this work who do not belong to this particular line of endeavour but who are working in other fields of hierarchical activity—of equal importance to be sure, but not the work to which you pledged yourself in years gone by. You do not keep your line of service clear. You wander into too many other fields of service which are not yours and where you are not wanted. So great has been your glamour that you have even desired to thrust into my group of disciples an aspirant who, in a later life, will shift her consciousness on to the mental plane and gradually become a conscious disciple, but who is not yet working on the level where those who could be, or are, accepted disciples, are working.
I am speaking to you with no evasion whatever. Your true friends are deeply distressed and seek to shield you and to hold you to the straight path of service. They are conscious of failure [613] and blame themselves for lack of right technique. Why should they succeed where I, too, apparently have failed, and when your own soul seems powerless to pierce the glamour into which you cyclically wander?
What are the major glamours into which you so easily penetrate and which blot out, whilst they last, all true perception?
1. The glamour of planning. You are sensitive to the Plan, but occupied with your own plans and believe that your plans are part of the Plan. List the plans and the schemes along many lines which you have evolved, my brother, and see how many you have succeeded in carrying through. Blame none but yourself if they were founded on astral dreams.
2. The glamour of your own spiritual ambition. You desire to be a group organiser under the Plan. You long to produce some working scheme yourself, paralleling that already being done but definitely your own, or to organise some group, paralleling those already existing but which will be also definitely yours. But, when asked to fit into the work of a group already existing, you are too busy with your own dreams to do so and somewhat despise the task assigned. But, my brother, in our work there is no great or little task, only obedience to the next duty whatever that may be.
3. The glamour of spiritual dominance or control over others. Therefore, continuously, you seek to find those to whom you can stand as a spiritual organiser. They are ever those of no great account in the scale of spiritual usefulness, and ever aspirants of good intention but you magnify their usefulness and possibilities in order to establish yourself—in your own eyes, if you could but recognise it—as a guide and leader of other disciples on the Way. You did this with two people, both of them good probationary disciples, and one nearing acceptance, but both working on the astral plane where those with whom I seek—at this particular time—to cooperate, are not working, except as souls, serving from the mental plane and from soul levels.
Again and again, my brother, during the past years I have sought to help you. The indication that what I say is true, lies in two basic facts: First, your deep unhappiness at this time and your inability to work with others, quietly and unassumingly [614] and, secondly, that no success along any line has come your way. Face up to that and understand the implications. Face these two facts with clarity and with hopefulness. The true disciple has ever to face facts. Let me give you certain facts and then let me beg of you to ponder on them:
1. You are nearly sixty. Ahead of you lie a few more years of service, if you will, or a futile running around, if you will.
2. You have been asked to collaborate in my work. This is not a question of your rendering obedience; in that I am not interested, but because, years ago, you recognised me and offered to help. You recognised some of my co-workers and offered your assistance.
3. Your "service," so called, has hitherto been the making of plans after your initial service of financing the earlier stage. But, my brother, the giving of money is the least important thing you have to offer. You have been occupied with large schemes, none of which have come to fruition because they were not the thing which you had, as a soul, undertaken to do and, therefore, they lacked the inflow of the group energy which would have guaranteed their success. You have been busy with an attempt to organise a group here and a group there. But the plans are already laid; the groups are already formed; the organisation, connected with my work, is already functioning. Then why not, brother of mine, collaborate with what already is?
4. You have no ability to work in a big way from the worldly angle and are too old to learn. But the success of all large undertakings is based on the little things, the minor tasks, faithfully fulfilled, of the disciple who is free from personal ambition.
5. It had been my intention to start some of you on definitely constructive work in connection with the dissipation of world glamour. But this activity you have delayed. You have hindered the work in the group up to date and this cannot be permitted much longer. Work along this line can be done successfully only by those who are mastering their personal glamours. You are yet in the depths of glamour and subconsciously know that this is true. All who know and love you, know it [615] and are in deep distress, wondering what they can do to help you and aid in your release.
6. The door still stands wide open for you. But the opportunity for you to go forward with your group is dependent upon your accepting the above facts and by your beginning, for the first time in your life, to work as a humble server, relinquishing all plans, all big ideas, and for the rest of this life (which is but a moment of time in the long cycle of the soul), doing the little things behind the scenes of which no one will know.
Have I been hard, my brother? I assure you of my steadfast love and of my deep and lasting desire to help you and to serve you.
I shall not attempt further to make clear to you the futility of your present life and activities. I stand ready to weld you into the group to which you pledged yourself as a soul and on soul levels. But to do this, you must reach the point of complete self-surrender and demonstrate your willingness to serve with humility and readiness. I will communicate with you again when you express the wish to have me do so and evidence, at the same time, a real understanding of that which I have sought to impress upon you.
You have a devotion and a persistence which can and must carry you through into the light. It has hitherto been a persistence, based on weakness, and your devotion has been glamorous. Now get down to facts. Let the future demonstrate a persistence which is based on conviction that you are in the Way of Service and that you travel not alone, but that a group of brothers stands ready to work with you when you will work with them. Let your devotion be that of devotion to your group brothers, to the need of humanity and to the Plan and last, and only last, to me.
February 1939
MY BROTHER:
It is with deep regret that I ask for your resignation from the group. If in later years you indicate to me a change of heart and a freedom from your present glamour, I will most gladly take you back into some group—though not into this one. I [616] believe that you are prepared for this decision of mine. The reason for it is that I cannot any longer permit your group brothers to be hindered in their group work from your constantly recurring tendency to glamour. They have suffered with patience for many years, in order to give you the time to pierce through into the light, but the urgency of the times is such that all workers are needed and the group work must go forward.
As you leave this group, what shall I say to you?
First of all, that your karmic link with me remains unbroken. Secondly, that your place will not be filled.... I have little else to say to you for I have said so much during the past years. Your place lies open. Forget it not. Time may enable you to show a changed attitude. If you so choose, and if you will take a suggestion from me, will you ventilate all that is in your mind—a thing which is most difficult for you to do? Write with freedom. Express yourself fully and drastically. If the glamour is not dispersed in this life, then another life may see a return to old karmic relationships. It lies with you. You will learn most now by handling life, by caring for those for whom you are responsible, and by retaining your relationship to useful service....
March 1941
MY BROTHER:
I think you know without any emphasis upon my part that the relation between us remains unbroken, though I have not been able for some time to contact you subjectively. This inability on my part is because the stimulation, which such a contact would inevitably bring, might (as it always has in the past) feed the glamours to which you so easily succumb.
The danger is now, I believe, greatly lessened and you can be trusted today with a closer contact with me and with the group on the inner subjective plane. The inner group remains and is closely linked with me.
You have struggled for years to overcome the glamours and illusions which overwhelm you with such frequency. Your major gain has been to recognise more consciously the danger and a more swift reaction to it when it appears. Late last summer [617] and early in the autumn, you very nearly succumbed to an old rhythm. Suspicion of yourself, an uneasy conscience and much outer plane work tended to safeguard you. See to it most carefully that this contact with me and with your brothers in the inner group does not re-awaken into activity well-trained tendencies, old forms of wishful thinking, and old desires for power.
For you, the remainder of this life must be given to the steady adherence to the duty of the day and to an intense inner life of meditation. Be consciously the sannyasin. Also, my brother, cooperate in all that proves itself (to your intuition) to be group activity and to which you can contribute power (gained in meditation) and understanding help. All else must be ruled out for this life; meditation and group service must, and will, provide adequate expression for all the powers of your personality and your soul. Find time for that service and be not entirely overwhelmed with the business of the physical plane. Your daily business, your daily service in your environment, your sensitivity to my impression (which can increasingly be developed) and your relation with the inner group on the mental plane will give you scope for loving, fruitful living and prepare you for the freer service of the next life.
You have had a gruelling and a testing time, my brother. Your improvement has been slow but real. You can be trusted more definitely now than in the past and it is for this reason that I again offer you a more conscious contact with myself. I here tell you my name—a fact that you already intuitively know. I am, by doing so, telling you of your status upon the Path—that of an Accepted Disciple. This carries with it, its encouragement, its responsibilities and its risks.
As you are now on the Path of Discipleship and under the direct influence of myself, the Master ... your major duty is to train yourself in the needed sensitivity of response to my voice and to the impression which I may be seeking to make upon your aspiring consciousness. This you will do by a constant attitude of directed attention, a controlled personality life and the elimination of all feverish effort along any line of endeavour. A clear, focussed mind, a loving heart, and a cultivated simplicity of understanding of yourself, of life and of [618] others is your great need just now. It will do much to bring your devious and involved mental attitudes and aspirations into right order. Make life very simple, brother of mine.
June 1942
BROTHER OF OLD:
You have been drawn back into a phase of my work which, in the early days, you aided me to start. Opportunity opens up before you; you can be and do much. The success of this will be dependent upon your ability to walk humbly and to recognise the fact that ancient thoughtforms still exist upon the periphery of your consciousness, and that the Dweller on the Threshold stands ready at all times to avail himself of the weaknesses to which you have been prone.
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