четверг, 3 декабря 2015 г.

33. Discipleship in the New Age,Vol. I - 12. SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - PART 6 - ALICE BAILEY

SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - PART 6



October 1936
MY BROTHER:
This has been a year of inner expansion for you and one which has brought you an increased capacity to see the vision with clarity. One of the goals for all true seekers is the development of "true insight" and this is becoming a nearer goal for you. You will know within yourself to what I am referring.
As you know, I find it useful to indicate to all in my group of pledged disciples their five determining or conditioning rays so that they can work with intelligence at the fusion of
a. The various personality rays.
b. The personality ray with the soul ray.
There are two major factors of paramount interest to all aspirants and—in your case—the task is made somewhat difficult because you have to add to these two tasks the work of shifting your soul ray from the sixth Ray of Devotion to the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. This is not an easy thing to do without an interlude of intense difficulty and of energy disruption, accompanied oft with loss of personality balance. You have, however, nearly completed the task and the worst part of the process is over. It had primarily a physiological effect upon you which showed itself in the difficulty you had a couple of years ago. At that time, as you know, I endeavoured to help you. That condition is now definitely ameliorated. The psychological implications are to be found in the transference of the psychical energy you wield from the solar plexus centre to the heart centre. In terms of living expression, this means that you can transmute devotion into love, and idealism into proven wisdom. Is not this your immediate aim, my brother?
As you know, your soul ray is the second ray, for your basic nature is essentially love-wisdom. Your personality ray is the first, the Ray of Will or Power. That has been for a long time subordinated to the past ray of your soul, that of devotion to the soul, to the Hierarchy, to humanity as well as to yourself. Your problem of personality emphasis has changed from that of the continuous impressing of your personality attitudes, ideas and desires upon your environment (as was the case in your last life) to an occasional cyclic and almost violent emphasis upon some individual. This is now only occasional (relatively speaking). You are learning to leave others free—a hard lesson for a first ray personality, animated as yours is by knowledge and goodwill.
The ray of your mental body is also the first ray. This means that your intelligent mind can dominate at need and can be far more powerful in expression than it usually is. It is always an interesting and an easy matter for the soul to control and illumine the mind when the first and the second rays are as closely related as they can be in your case.
As your emotional body is, however, on the sixth ray (as was your soul when you came into incarnation) it is therethat the emphasis of the soul has been and there has been for you the line of least resistance. Now the line of least resistance should be the mind, and your major objective in life and in meditation should be the mind, and increased illumination—this in order to render increased service to your fellowmen. Hence the meditation which I have outlined for you and which I would ask you to follow. It is brief and powerful.
Your physical body is also on the first ray, so you can see how powerful a combination you have for service, if you can truly comprehend your problem and work with a sense of synthesis. It is not so much the mystical union, my brother, to which you should aspire for that is progressively proceeding, but an intensified illumination of the concrete mind. Therefore, your rays are as follows:
1. The soul ray—the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.
2. The personality ray—the first Ray of Power or Will.
3. The ray of the mind—the first Ray of Power.
4. The ray of the astral body—the sixth Ray of Devotion.
5. The ray of the physical body—the first Ray of Power.
It is this powerful first ray combination of forces in your equipment which has produced the emotional instability of which you have ever been conscious. But the shift of your soul energy on to the second ray will now most definitely offset this and lead to a condition of focussed stability. This will probably also better your physical condition.
I would ask you to do the following brief exercise:
1. Endeavour to focus yourself in the light of the soul through the practice of alignment. You must realise:
a. The soul is light.
b. Light is reflected in the mind.
c. Then automatically you become one of the Light bearers.
d. The light shineth in a dark place.
2. Make a conscious alignment then of the vehicles with the soul, holding these thoughts in mind.
3. Then, consciously, hold the mind steady in the Light.
4. Give five minutes to:
a. A dedication of the personality to the service of the Light.
b. The assuming of the responsibility of a Light bearer.
c. Seeing the Hierarchy of Servers with which you are definitely affiliated as a power-house of Light.
5. Give five minutes to meditation. Note down any thoughts which may come into your mind on the beam of light from your soul.
August 1937
MY BROTHER AND MY CHOSEN FRIEND:
The past few months have been difficult for you. They have involved decision, changes, much misunderstanding in certain quarters and a deeply sensed loneliness. If you will study what I have earlier told you anent your rays, you will see why this is so. There is in your present life make-up or "presented appearance," an over-balance of the first ray attributes. Your personality ray, your mind ray, and the ray of your physical body are all governed by your first ray energy and this presents a very real problem because it predisposes you to the following conditions:
1. A loneliness which is based on a sense of isolation. This is due also to the sense of isolation which the first ray always gives. It is essentially the ray of detachment. This is, for you, offset by your soul ray.
2. Owing to the fact that first ray energy in your case is focussed in your personality and in two of its mediums of expression, you wield—owing to the unbalance—an undue power or effect upon all you meet and seek to help. Fortunately for you, and also owing to the quality of your soul ray and to an achieved measure of control, your effect upon those you seek to serve is good. You are, however, definitely aware (are you not?) of the powerful influence you can call into play and thus affect other people's lives. You know also the powerful reaction you can evoke from them. This is the effect of first ray force when focussed upon the physical plane. It provides both an asset and a problem. You came into incarnation this life to learn to wield this force rightly and, in the effort to do so, you have in many cases inhibited its outer expression, sometimes with disastrous results (oft of a psychical nature) upon yourself.
3. Your emotional nature has been the clearing-house for all this first ray energy; this will account to you for much of your inner experience and for much that you have suffered and do suffer.
Having pointed this out, I would add that this powerfully polarised first ray personality gives you the power to do three things:
First of all, to storm the Kingdom of Heaven and take it by violence and consequently—in this life—to force certain issues and bring certain soul objectives to fruition. Be, therefore, encouraged.
Secondly, to make possible certain forms of service in your personality life. Earlier I have used a phrase to that effect when teaching you that "your intelligent mind can dominate at need." This was a statement of fact; one of the ways in which you can rightly use the first ray energy, predominantly yours, is by forcing mental issues and making yourself do what your soul or the Hierarchy asks of you....
Thirdly, your first ray personality makes it easily possible for you to dominate those you meet. This would have been dangerous for you to attempt in your last life, for love did not so powerfully control your reactions. It is not dangerous in this life if you hold on to love and avoid the outer forms and techniques of authority and control, thus developing wisdom and practising impersonality. Your motives are seldom at fault. Your methods are somewhat first ray methods, forcefully applied at times; this damages those you seek to help.
This particular life has been a crucial and difficult one for you but you are equal to the task your soul assigned. It will remain so and there is for you (as is always the case for disciples at a certain stage of unfoldment) no cessation, no easing of the situation and no periods or interludes for real rest or pause. Do not, therefore, look for them. Pass on triumphantly in the love of your soul and the power of your personality.
Guard your health, my brother. Stand closely with your chosen fellow disciples. Your link with them is strong. See also that your astral body is not the recipient of too much first ray energy but protect it from that inflow by an active concentration of your mind upon your chosen field of service, and develop an increased inflow of soul wisdom. Concentrate upon wisdom which, in relation to the astral body, means the unfolding (through love) of the intuition. The pure expression of the love of the soul is not so difficult for you to express but it is hard for your emotional nature to handle it. Is this not so, my friend and brother?
April 1938
MY BROTHER AND CO-WORKER:
I have but little to say to you or to any in this particular group of my disciples at this time. I desire most earnestly that the group integration may be strengthened by the understanding performance of the group work. That in itself will bring fusion. That fusion will work out in the strengthening of the group relation and the stimulation of the individual in the group—an aspect of the work which is oft forgotten but which is of real importance. To this stimulating of the group and of the individual, you can contribute much and your ability so to serve will increase....
Again I would ask you to watch your health but principally—in these days of strain and of difficulty—your astral health. Will you say each day the following mantram:
"Within the circle of the will of God, I stand.
Without the radius of the world of glamour, I take my place
And there I stand.
Before the open door that just reveals a different lighted way
I take my stand.
Before the presence I will take my place and there will firmly stand.
And standing, see."
Three words stand out in this mantram and to them I will call your attention; the way, the presence and sight.
My blessing rests upon you at all times.
January 1940
How shall I approach you, my beloved brother, at this time and how indicate to you your prevailing glamour without, at the same time, so wounding your sensitive nature that I shall do more harm than good? And, I ask myself, how much revelation is needed by you, for, are you not aware of two glamours which prevent the full expression of your soul and hinder the ripening to perfection of your truly dedicated life?
Ponder upon these words as you pass through the "intruding seclusion" of the coming months, for so your personality may regard the adjustments of your soul. I will but give a name to your two glamours and will leave you to deal with them or not as may seem best to you. Upon your method, however, of aspecting them will depend much of the effectiveness of your future service for us. To that service you are unflinchingly dedicated, and from that service naught will turn your steps. But delay might eventuate until the needed lesson has been mastered.
One of the glamours which controls you is that of the highest level of the astral plane. One of the Masters has called it "the glamour of the rose of aspiration as it pours through the solar plexus and not through the heart." Another is the glamour of the Burning Ground which can so engross the attention of the disciple or the initiate that his spiritual place thereon, the results of the clarifying fires and the heat of purification become the all-absorbing theme of the personality and, brother of mine, the personality must be lost to sight in the "glory of the One."
Need I further elaborate? Is not my meaning clear to you, even though to no one else? I stand with you and will continue to stand, for whether I am on the burning ground or on the mountain top, whether I am silent in the secret place or surrounded by the surging crowds of humanity, it matters not. The lessons of divine indifference, once mastered, release the soul to union with the One. Surely it might be said that He Whom I and you and all disciples serve, the Christ, demonstrated in Gethsemane His sensitivity to that lesson and also His mastering of it.
NOTE: This brother is still actively cooperating with the Tibetan.
To L. F. U.
August 1937
BROTHER SERVER:
I have watched you for some years now, little as you may have suspected it. It was under my definitely applied impression that you found your way into my group of disciples in which you now work, and at the same time you found your destined field of service. I am glad to welcome you into this group of students. The personal touch is wise with you for you neither fear nor crave it.
In the life of every aspirant, there comes a life wherein he finds the group to which he belongs. I refer to the inner group of disciples and the outer group of servers with whom he can and must cooperate. When these two discoveries synchronise (which is not always the case) much time is saved and the opportunity is great. This has been the case with you, and this I believe you are beginning to realise.
Your soul ray, my brother, is the first, and your personality ray is the third. Owing to the pressure of the times and of the work for this immediate cycle, you may have heard it said that I am relieving some of the Teachers on the inner side and thus setting Them free for wider and more exacting service. I am handling some of Their pupils for Them and preparing some of Their aspirants (whom They have been watching) for the stage of accepted discipleship. In this last category you now find yourself. It was the coming under my influence subjectively that led you to the realisation that the deepening of your love nature was, for you, the next step in your equipping yourself for service. Your ray combinations necessitated this and my second ray influence, therefore, helped. There is not an aspirant in the world who could not well intensify his divine love nature, not his astral emotional love nature. But you need to comprehend always the reason for any development and hence my explanation.
You have come a long distance quite rapidly upon the Path lately, and have definitely increased both your vibratory capacity and your influence. Some years of potent service are possible to you and again another explanation is in order. He Whom you will some day know as your Master when admitted in full consciousness into His group of disciples (the Master M.) is the head of all esoteric schools in the world at this time. Hence you can see why you found your way into my group of disciples and why also you are working actively and fruitfully in its executive and organisational end. It is in line with your inner group force and this, rightly understood and used, can make of you a useful focal point for the Master's energy in the place where you have chosen to serve. You must learn to differentiate, therefore, as time goes on and your sensitivity increases, between:
1. The vibratory influence (incoming and outgoing) of your own soul.
2. The vibratory influence (incoming and outgoing) of this particular group of disciples.
3. The vibratory influence (incoming and outgoing) of the esoteric schools.
4. The vibratory influence (incoming and outgoing) of the head of all esoteric groups, the Master Morya.
This you will not be able to do for some time yet, but the developing of this type of sensitivity is, for you, a needed unfoldment, and will come eventually, if you will follow my instructions with care, and let true love increasingly sweep through the lower personal self. It can sweep through, my brother, because (as you rightly feel) you do know somewhat of the nature of love. It is, however, one thing to love, and another thing to be a channel of the love of the soul and of the group.
Your sphere of work is clear to you, and there you are both needed and useful, which is all that you desire. The keynote of your daily work should be understanding, just as the keynote of your work with yourself on all three planes should be fearlessness, with love colouring all your life. These are the three words which express what should be the colour-tone of your life expression from now until the call comes for you to serve on the other side of the veil of life. Ponder on these three words—understanding, courage or fearlessness, and love—for the remainder of your life of service, for "as a man thinketh, so is he."
We will now change your meditation and for the future, until I again make a change, I would suggest the following:
Meditation Work:
1. Alignment with the soul and a definite conscious polarising of realisation as high in the head and as high on the mental plane as possible. Then pause.
Visualisation Exercise:
2. Then look out, in your imagination, over the world of men. See that world as one of light, with here and there intensifications of the light in certain localities or centres or areas.
a. Then imagine this web of light with its radiant centres of force as pulsating to the rhythm of the world aspiration.
b. Regard yourself then as the onlooker, but also as a channel, among the many channels, for the energy of the spiritual Hierarchy, focussed for you through the Master Morya, and stepped down to you through me, your Tibetan brother.
c. Use then the set of phrases which embody your aspiration and which appears in your replies:
"Love is the incentive of our aspiration on the Path;
Love is the substance of our living in the world.
Love is the light and the light of freedom for all creatures;
Love pulses through the universe in a divine rhythm.
Love is the consciousness of God."
d. Imagine, as you do this, that the energy of love is pouring through the web of light, stimulating each of the many, many centres into greater radiance.
3. Then sound the O.M. breathing it forth into the personality.
4. Next, do some mental work in meditation, holding the mind steady in the light; carry your service in my group and any other aspect of your work in the world into that light, seeing it all as part of the one great service. For you, intercession is peculiarly useful, for it tends to promote understanding.
5. Seek then to get in touch with your group brothers, holding them too, as a group, in the light.
If you so desire, on two days in the week, you can follow any meditation which you find useful and helpful. I seek to leave you free.
February 1938
MY BROTHER:
You have for some time been working on the meditation assigned. You have made progress—more progress than you yourself can perhaps sense. I say this to you for your encouragement. In the regimentation and the regularity of your life and in the steady rhythm of your service, high moments of realisation and of exaltation become relatively rare. Points of crisis, of spiritual crisis, may lack. I point this out so that you can see to it that in the inner life there is potency and dynamic impulse, e'en when the outer life seems moulded to a pattern. It is a needed pattern, because it makes your service possible. The moment a man sets his hand to the plough and starts upon his ploughing, from that moment until he has completed his task, he remains internally free but outwardly bound. So it must ever be with the servers in our work.
But climaxing moments are of importance and the pursuit of an even tenor is not usually good for a disciple, if overlong perpetuated, especially at the point of evolution at which you find yourself. It is good for the aspirant who is working upon the control of the emotional body and the attaining of astral equilibrium. It is not so good for the pledged disciple whose career should have in it—as did the career of the Christ—the valley and the mountain top experience, and the cave experience also with its loneliness and its period of introspective culture. Therefore, my brother, I call you to a more dynamic living than heretofore. The attainment of the outer attitude in your chosen work has been good. The inner orientation to the soul as love, is also good. Let there be no doubt in your mind upon this point. But paralleling this steady progress must come an increasing crescendo of experience, and a more vivid interim living. I think you will apprehend that whereof I speak because I speak in terms of your own desire.
For the coming year, keep your spiritual diary in terms of crisis. Create not these crises for yourself. They are not of a physical nature, nor need they be emotional. But they should be mental and of the soul. If these crises occur within the astral body they produce a contraction—which is incident to selfish concentration, to that pain or pleasure which comes when there is the satisfaction or the negation of that which is demanded, emotionally or sentiently. Is this not so, my brother? But the crises of the soul are expansions, registered by the inflow of love and light. They are mentally recognised crises of inclusiveness. These lead one on and prepare one for the later more vast expansions which we call initiations. It is these expansive crises in the various aspects of your nature which I ask that you watch and register and record during the coming year. Note in which body or vehicle of experience they occur. Note, too, your reaction to them and their after-effect in your personal life and in your service. You will find this of major interest.
You are in a position where you can be of much service to others. Your usefulness depends upon your ability to achieve a constant inner growth and progressive realisation and your consequent capacity to meet all who seek your aid in a spirit of love, free from personal criticism and with the intelligent reticence which is so pre-eminently one of your characteristics. The intensification of the potency of your aura (your personality emanation) is most desirable for it is through the right use of the aura that we stimulate others to renewed effort, or slow them down to less potent expression. This intensification is dependent upon the quality, potency and tempo of your subjective life. Hence the earlier suggestions I have made to you.
As regards your meditation work, I would change it somewhat. For the next ten months, the following procedure will be desirable. See to it that by the time the sun moves northward, you will have so assimilated the procedure and accustomed yourself to the form that that aspect of the meditation will be automatic and your inner attention can, therefore, be given to the significances of the work assigned. The objective is to enable you to pursue two lines of activity accurately and simultaneously.
Meditation Work:
1. Give five minutes to alignment consciously achieved and to the withdrawing of your consciousness to as high a point as possible.
2. Then take five minutes for complete silence, of both the inner and the outer man. The breathing, if correctly followed, should greatly aid in this.
3. Then inaudibly and in the achieved silence, sound the Sacred Word, the O.M., listening as you sound it, and imagining it as being sounded by the soul. The soul breathes out the sound and passes it through all three bodies and thus out into the world of men, carrying love and power.
4. On receipt of these instructions and having in mind their general tenor, choose six short passages which should constitute your seed thoughts for the next six months. Choose them from any source you prefer but choose them all at once within a few days of receiving this. If you prefer, you can use the following six symbolic sentences which I have chosen for you. I have chosen them for you because—rightly used and understood—they can act as focal points for spiritual energy, breaking up that which hinders and pouring a cleansing tide through your personality. You seek to be a channel and you long adequately to serve. This I know. Be willing, therefore, to let the "forces of light" enact their will within your life, e'en though you awaken with surprise to unknown and unrealised aspects of yourself—both good and not so good.
First month . . . A barrier of stone. A flood of cleansing water, and then the Vision. The pilgrim then can chant: I stand in love.
Second month . . . A boat at rest upon a sea of blue. And then a tidal wave. But after that the calm. The boatman chants: The storm has brought me here.
Third month . . . A mountain top. Snow with a fold of sunshine. A group of pilgrims on the upward way. One pilgrim chants: In love we walk the Way.
Fourth month . . . Three birds upon a tree. A searing wind and pouring rain, and then the nightingale—the bird who sings close to the heart of God.
Fifth month . . . A gate of brass, a golden portal and then an ivory door. Three gates, but only two are shut. Pass on, oh pilgrim on the Way, and find the open door.
Sixth month . . . The rising dawn; a cool breeze and a shaft of light. A weary pilgrim and then again the vision. He chants: I stand in love for ever.
5. Then mentally carry your group brothers into the light and see the whole group functioning as a unit and held together by love, mutual understanding and corporate vision and united service.
November 1938
BROTHER OF MINE:
Little as you may like to hear it or to recognise it, I wish to tell you that you have made more real progress the past year than in any previous ten years. You might ask me how I know this and in what way I can register this development? By the breaking up of old adhesions (to use the language of surgery, and the soul is a most efficient surgeon) and the disappearance of ancient crystallisations, it becomes apparent to me that the power of your soul is making itself felt. That is good. But I would point out to you one thing that all aspirants are apt to overlook, and that is that the successful application of soul force to the personality life will always produce over-stimulation in one or other of the bodies and that this must be guarded against and definitely offset.
You have a curious combination of rays with which to work, my brother and my friend, but a correct understanding of the five forces which control you in this incarnation should do much to enable you to make a right approach to the life work which will be yours in your next incarnation. This particular life which you are now experiencing is simply a preparatory one. In the earlier part of this life you worked definitely with what you inherited from a previous life, following the lines of least resistance. This culminated for you in certain aspects of creative work, but it was only the fulfilment of innate capacity and most definitely personality achievement, and not soul performance. Forget not, however, that personality achievement is, in its right place and time, divine achievement.
But the point for you to grasp is that this later part of your life is pronouncedly preparatory training for creative group achievement in your next life. One of the problems which we, the teachers upon the inner side, have always to face is how to lead our chelas to the recognition of the temporary and relatively unimportant nature of any one particular life. You had, up to the age of forty-three, no real group sense. You came into incarnation to gain it and found your way into group activity. This proved to you a place of soul satisfaction at times, and of conflict many times. And, my brother, you have made real progress in the evocation of group consciousness. It has been peculiarly difficult in your case, owing to the two major rays which control you—the first Ray of Power, of isolation, detachment and the sense of uniqueness, and the third Ray of Intelligence, which is apt to bring with it the sense of pride of intellect. This latter you have most successfully controlled. But in this particular incarnation, every step forward in soul control must be taken through the facing of certain tests connected with your line of least resistance, and must be taken with the eyes of the mind wide open, so as to avoid the pitfalls of aloneness, and of separation. This I think you know.
Your problem is further complicated by the fact that your mental body is on the third Ray of Active Intelligence which is also your personality ray. This does two things for you: It definitely facilitates the integration of your personality, and it also enables you to contact your soul with relative ease, if you so choose. Nevertheless, it also emphasises all the third ray faculties and capacities of your personality—critical, analytical, separative, prideful and full of self-interest—and, as you are definitely going through a process of rapid integration, this produces situations which require most careful handling and watching.
Your astral or emotional body is on the sixth Ray of Devotion. This brings in the conflicts of idealism, and constitutes for you the crux of your life problem. It enables you also to bring certain offsetting tendencies to your personality and mind rays which are most valuable.
As your physical body is also upon the sixth ray, your brain is consequently most responsive to your astral impulses, particularly along the lines of idealism. The combination of these two sixth ray forces in your equipment are your only points of contact (in this incarnation) with the great second ray lines of force. You should bear this most carefully in mind and cultivate the higher or group idealism assiduously and earnestly, for it is through this idealism that your entire personality life expression can arrive at the needed balance and recognitions.
March 1939
MY BROTHER:
Your glamours are not many or potent, for you are more subject to illusions than to glamours, being so predominantly a mental type of disciple. The question in my mind which I bring to you today for answering is whether the mental emphasis which you impose upon all your daily living, both inner and outer, may not within itself constitute a hindering glamour, thus handicapping the full awakening of the heart centre. Much have you done in the past five years anent the increased sensitivity of the heart. Yet the rationalising intellect can still impede the receptivity of the heart to life and circumstance and, above all, to the dominant appealing note of humanity itself and as a whole.
Are you strong enough to participate, with no barriers up, in the present world sorrow, world distress and world awakening?
The heart of humanity is now coming to life and that in itself constitutes a problem.
The combination of a trained mind and an awakened heart is the objective of the disciple who at your stage of development is in preparation for initiation, and the relation between the two is oft forgotten. It is one of an unrecognised glamour, owing to the fact that the achievement of intellectual balance can temporarily upset the truer balance of the whole man. As I told you some years ago, the heart afire with love (not with sentiment or with emotion) is your life goal and this must be achieved not by stifling the intellect but by an intellectual perception of the significance of the loving heart, plus an active understanding of the significance of human suffering, leading eventually to participation in it. It is this relation of the trained mind and the awakened heart that constitutes the true burning ground and a study of the human situation at the present time would indicate the correctness of my proposition.
June 1940
MY BROTHER AND FRIEND:
You are one of the few in the group who have—consciously or subconsciously—made a strenuous effort to develop the qualities as indicated by me. Love, you are rapidly developing and expressing and much that seemed inexplicable to you in my earlier emphasis (when starting work with you) now seems clear to your perception. The need for fearlessness will be recognised by you in a different light if you study with care any communication which you may receive from me at any time. On this subject, I will say no more for you will comprehend whereof I speak and the reason for the brevity of this communication. Understanding grows apace in you. One hint, however, I will give. Let it be the understanding of the point of view of others and not so much your understanding or their understanding. You need, if I might so express it, to cultivate a close identification with others and not to cultivate the effort to understand. Ponder on this. I have no more to say to you in this instruction and the reason for this is known to you.
NOTE: This disciple is still working with the Tibetan.
To I. B. S.
March 1932
MY BROTHER:
You have entered my group of disciples for a certain specific training and in that word "training," you have the keynote of your intended accomplishment. The training to be given calls for no enforced obedience but it does entail the submission of the personality to the will of the soul and not to that of the lower desire nature, no matter how fine or aspirational. I seek to indicate to you modes of unfoldment and to give you hints as to capacity. Beyond that I have no function.
You have been working and serving for years, and it is that service and that aspiration which have carried you forward into definite training for initiation. In a certain sense, therefore, you have been accepted as a chela and to me has been assigned the work of safeguarding you. I say "work" with deliberation and ask you to ponder the phrase I employed. How long you will be preparing for such a step in the expansion of your consciousness is of no importance and I ask you to forget it. But it is of importance that you get out of this opportunity its utmost usefulness.
You may well imagine, brother of mine, that it is not my intention to waste my time or yours in feeding pride with flattery or in holding out to you a vision of a notable future. The physical plane realities emerge out of a true, inner, spiritual development, and if you are sincere (and this I do believe you to be) you will welcome the plain speaking and truth—no matter how temporarily humiliating you may find it to be. If all is ultimately to be revealed as men develop the powers of the soul, it is time we learned to know one another as we are and to regard exposure as a means towards eradication.
You have two main difficulties and before you can go forward into a greater liberty these must be, in some measure, overcome. The one that looms the larger in your consciousness is that of the physical plane handicap of an unstable digestive system. The one that looms the larger (in the consciousness of those who seek to help upon the inner side) is an over-emphatic personality, with its attention focussed on the personality and on its doings, instead of being focussed upon the inspiring soul.
The result of this tendency is an excessive intensity of vibration which wrecks and shatters the mechanism. Your sixth ray personality produces an intense adherence to your ideals and to the truth, as you see it; it produces also a one-pointedness which has led to a focussing of energy in the head. This has been intensified also, owing to our western civilisation being immersed in the thoughtforms of the Piscean Age—the age of the sixth ray which is still with us. When the first ray energy of the soul pours in and blends itself with the sixth ray force, the shattering effect is increased and the personality carries more force than it can handle. That energy is also unevenly distributed and goes primarily to the throat and to the solar plexus, causing a disturbance and an upsetting of the balance of the forces in the body. This, in its turn, produces a disturbance in the alimentary tract and when this disturbance becomes an established habit, a very real problem is presented.
You ask: What shall, therefore, be done? I will give some suggestions which you can follow or not as you choose.
1. Lose sight of yourself in loving other people and feed not personality satisfaction in a constant managing of their affairs.
2. You have a gift of love and understanding. Use it as a soul and not so much as a personality.
3. Learn to put first things first and do not pay so much attention to the small but engrossing details, presented by circumstances and by other people. These feed personality satisfaction as you handle them with your undoubted efficiency. Sit back and let the life aspect work in you and in others.
Your digestive difficulties will be much aided and might disappear when you have established a constructive relation between your soul and your personality and when you can live in your heart and not in your solar plexus.
November 1933
BROTHER OF MINE:
This is simply a very brief notation. You have made some progress in relegating the personality to the background and you are now more inclusive than heretofore. See to it that steady progress is made in that direction. With an aspirant as tried and focussed as yourself, I need no easy words with which to apply the truth. I can speak with directness and with certainty of attention to that which may be said.
The progress you have made warrants my giving you a meditation to be followed with care during the next few months.... And now, brother of old, I say to you (as I say to all aspirants in training for discipleship): Learn that occult reticence which produces inner power and outer silence. Speak less and love more....
March 1934
BROTHER OF MINE:
What shall I say to you now as the time comes when again I can communicate with you? My heart is with you and I have an understanding of the way that you have come. Your very intensity and your strong aspiration have led you into difficulty and you are the victim of your virtues and of your occult inexperience. Do you not know, my brother, that the disciple is ever balanced in endeavour and runs not to extremes of any kind? Yet balanced effort has not characterised your work the past few months. You have been swept by an emotional thoughtform and the effect of the astral energy has been to increase the emotional devotion and the physical nervousness which have ever handicapped you. The effect of true teaching, emanating from mental levels, is to stabilise, to mentalise and to ground the disciple in spiritual being; to be is for you the goal.
It is not the function of the true teacher ever to criticise. It is his function to watch over the chela and in the light of wisdom and compassion to aid him with instruction. I have today a few things to say to you and they must be briefly expressed because your fatigue is greater than you realise. You need rest and care. This is owing to excessive emotional stimulation which has been thrust upon you; this comes from a group of well-meaning aspirants gathered around a thoughtform of myself to be found on the higher levels of the astral plane. It is only a thoughtform which they see in a glamorous light and such thoughtforms of the teachers are often to be found and are purely astral and not real.
First, I would say: Be not discouraged but admit the failure of your intuition. Be, however, true to yourself and if you feel, my brother, that the position is not as I have stated it to be, then abide by your own decision and be true to your higher self. That is the matter of the greatest moment—personal truth and integrity. This decision may lead you to continue to form part of my group of disciples—a cooperation which has been interrupted the past few months—or it may lead you to work in conjunction with the group which has lately so powerfully influenced you. But be true to the situation as, in sober meditation, you see it; no higher attitude can be expected of anyone.
Have in mind, however, that your physical body is not strong enough to stand the pressure of two vibratory groups and (until such time as you make your choice) we will hold the work you do with me in abeyance. The choice is entirely yours; you are utterly free to act as seems wisest to you and there will be no criticism from us entailed in any decision you may make.
Secondly, should you desire to continue with my instructions, then discontinue acting upon the instructions which have been going to you from this group whose focus is on the astral plane. Resume then the work I outlined for you earlier which you have lately neglected and follow my instructions in detail and with meticulous care.
In connection with the meditation work and the energy you gather, will you remember that this will not stimulate your nervous body at this time but can become a group asset. The effect of the work you have been doing with the group which is working under the influence of glamour has been to feed your devotional nature, to emphasise yourdevelopment, your training, your work, your need and what is thought of you. None of it has been of any value to this group of disciples to whom you had pledged yourself or to your associates in service with whom you have been for so long affiliated or to those connected with you in your current daily life. It has indeed produced a separating effect between yourself, your group and your surroundings. This you know well and it is distressing you deeply. Your failure to conform to the requirements of my Ashram has not aided either, has it?
All the work that I seek to do with you and my other disciples has been with the objective of intensifying their group relation, to deepen their group love and to bind them together as a group. For this is group work which the Hierarchy and those associated with it do, and my group is not one wherein personal training is given in order to bring about personal growth. Let me emphasise this again, my brother. I am not training you so that you can grow. I am training a group of disciples so that they may function as a unit, and as a welded totality. That subjective inner unity has been neglected by you whilst you wandered down a byway of high grade personality and emotional beauty but which in reality belonged to the world of illusion and not to the world of light and of vision.
Your great sensitivity made this easy. Your latent love of power facilitated your delusion. Your failure to conform to group requirements precipitated the coming of the glamour. But your inner link is strong and your aspiration vital, if you will but see truly and act strongly.
The next thing that I want to say to you is that your etheric body (which expresses itself through the nervous body) is in a rent condition. Forget not that these thoughtforms of power sap and drain those who attach themselves to them. You have much ground to regain physically as a result of the past few months....
Again I say: Be not discouraged. By our failures and our reactions to glamour, we learn to tread with confidence the Way of Light. By our falling into criticism, we can gauge our soul quality. Neither criticism of those who lead my group and with whom you have been affiliated, nor criticism of those who lead the group upon the astral plane which has brought you into the realm of glamour, will do more than reveal to you that personality reactions block the way of the soul. In the last analysis, your problem is not which of these two lines of teaching you will accept or which of certain guiding personalities are my representatives. Your problem is whether your intuition can discern between a soul vibration and the vibration of a high grade astral form. Your Tibetan brother and other individuals do not count. If they count with you, then you are in error. It is truth that counts and the associating of yourself with the highest truth you can contact.
I have written to you thus, my brother, because I sense the tension of your nature and your bewilderment at the situation—one which you had not foreseen and which causes you deep distress. Relax and be at peace. Thus will you make right decision. In the light of eternity, these little happenings (and how small they are when looked at in the right light and—dare I say it?—with a sense of humour!) disappear. Go forward with fresh courage. Learn from the past but refuse to be held by that past. Do not let the words or the influence of anyone lead you. May the light of your own soul lead you from strength to strength and reveal to you a purity of motive which will flood your life with love.
September 1934
BROTHER OF MINE:
For you today I have a very simple message and a simple instruction. I would say to you in the words of the initiate, Paul: "Forgetting the things which are behind, press forward." The glamour which enveloped you has gone. It has gone, my brother. You are now suffering primarily from fear and from humiliation. These are both destructive and unnecessary. You were the focal point for the glamour but you were also the focal point for the group love, which you aided much in awakening. Dwell somewhat upon this.
You are entering now upon changed conditions and your life will take a different line of action in the future. For this you must be prepared. But all ways are ways of service, and in service and in the helping of your fellowmen there comes for you the way of liberation. Be concerned with the group work and its rightful processes. Your soul will prove your guardian. Continue to give your physical body rest and sleep. Feed it normally and sanely and play no experiments with it as you have so oft and foolishly done in the past. Keep busy with the Master's work and with happiness enter upon and accomplish each day's task.... Your offering to the group is the providing of opportunity for service. You must learn to be served as well as to serve, for in so doing, your personal will is broken and the higher good substituted.
February 1935
We can now, brother of mine, begin to do more definite work. E'en yet, however, you must proceed with care and for another few months I would suggest that you do no work, except that which I may here indicate. The rent in the etheric body, which reduced you to such a serious condition early last year is now sealed, but it would take only a little to re-open it again if you were subjected to undue strain. It was through this rent that the glamour entered in such full force and worked such temporary havoc in your life.

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