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THE NEW GROUP OF WORLD SERVERS - Part 1

We have spoken often of the integrating group of knowers who are beginning to function upon the earth, gathered together in loose formation and held by the inner spiritual tie and not by any outer organisation.  The planetary Hierarchy has always existed and from time immemorial and right down the ages those sons of men who have fitted themselves for work and who have measured up to the requirements, have found their way into the ranks of those who stand behind the world evolution and guide the destinies of the little ones.

Their grades and works are theoretically known, and names of some have been given out to the masses,—at what cost and personal sacrifice those masses will never know.  With the Hierarchy of adepts I do not propose to deal.  The books upon the subject are easily available and should be read with the needed reservations as to symbolical interpretations and the limiting effects of words.

An event is however transpiring upon earth which is, in its way, as momentous and as important as that crisis in Atlantean times when the physical, vital and astral bodies were coordinated and formed a functioning unit.  Then the 'yoga of devotion' or bhakti yoga was initiated for the training of the aspirants at that time.  A physical plane replica (as far as such a replica was then possible) was organised of those who could work devotedly and who could learn, through the use of ceremonial and pictures, some mode of activity which would carry on the hierarchical work on earth and thus constitute a training [399] school for those who later would be admitted into the ranks of the Hierarchy.  The remnants of this Atlantean group remain with us in the modern Masonic movements, and the work of the Hierarchy was thus perpetuated in sign and symbol.  There has thus been preserved in the consciousness of the race a pictorial representation of a momentous planetary condition which worked out in the human family in this threefold coordination.  But it was primarily objective.  Form and symbol, tool and furniture, temple and tone, office and externalities were the prominent factors; they veiled the truth and therefore preserved the 'outer and visible form of an inner and spiritual' reality.  Only those were, in those days, allowed to participate in these mysteries and work who felt within themselves the longing and desire for the mystical vision, and who loved deeply and were devoted to the spiritual ideal.  They were not required to possess active mentalities, and their intellectual powers were practically nil.  They liked and needed authority: they learnt through ceremonial; they were devoted to the Great Ones Whose names and forms stood behind the office holders in the esoteric lodges.  Mind entered not in.  This must be remembered.  There were no personalities.

Today, in the world, another great moment of crisis has arrived.  I refer not to the present world condition, but to the state of the human consciousness.  Mind has arrived at a functioning power, personalities are coordinated.  The three aspects of man are being blended; another formation or precipitation from the Hierarchy of adepts has become possible.  On the physical plane, without any exoteric organisation, ceremonials, or outer form, there is integrating—silently, steadily and powerfully—a group of men and women who will supersede eventually the previous hierarchical effort.  They will supersede all churches, all groups, and all organisations and will [400] eventually constitute that oligarchy of elect souls who will govern and guide the world.

They are being gathered out of every nation, but are gathered and chosen, not by the watching Hierarchy or by any Master, but by the power of their response to the spiritual opportunity, tide and note.  They are emerging out of every group and church and party, and will therefore be truly representative.  This they do, not from the pull of their own ambition and prideful schemes, but through the very selflessness of their service.  They are finding their way to the top in every department of human knowledge, not because of the clamour they make about their own ideas, discoveries and theories, but because they are so inclusive in their outlook and so wide in their interpretation of truth that they see the hand of God in all happenings, His imprint upon all forms and His note sounding forth through every channel of communication between the subjective reality and the objective outer form.  They are of all races; they speak all languages; they embrace all religions, all sciences and all philosophies.  Their characteristics are synthesis, inclusiveness, intellectuality and fine mental development.  They own to no creed, save the creed of Brotherhood, based on the one Life.  They recognise no authority, save that of their own souls, and no Master save the group they seek to serve, and humanity whom they deeply love.  They have no barriers set up around themselves, but are governed by a wide tolerance, and a sane mentality and sense of proportion.  They look with open eyes upon the world of men and recognise those whom they can lift and to whom they can stand as the Great Ones stand,—lifting, teaching and helping.  They recognize their peers and equals, and know each other when they meet and stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow workers in the work of salvaging humanity.  It does not matter if their terminologies differ, their interpretations of symbols [401] and scriptures vary, or their words are few or many.  They see their group members in all fields—political, scientific, religious, and economic—and give to them the sign of recognition and the hand of a brother.  They recognise likewise Those who have passed ahead of them upon the ladder of evolution and hail Them Teacher, and seek to learn from Them that which They are so eager to impart.

This group is a product of the past and upon that past I will touch; I will also indicate the present situation and forecast somewhat the general lines along which their association and future work will run.  That such a group is forming is true and holds a good augury for the coming decades.  In quiet and subtle ways they are already making their presence felt but theirs is as yet primarily a subjective influence.

Let us begin with the past.  About the year 1400, the Hierarchy of Masters was faced with a difficult situation.  As far as the work of the second ray was concerned (which had to do with the impartation of spiritual truth) there had come to be what I might call a complete exteriorisation of that truth.  The activity of the first ray had also brought about an intense differentiation and crystallisation among the nations and governments of the world.  These two conditions of concrete orthodoxy and political differences persisted for many generations and are still manifesting.  Today we have a similar condition both in the world of religion and in that of politics.  This is true whether one is considering India or America, China or Germany, or whether one is studying the history of Buddhism with its many sects, Protestantism with its myriads of warring groups, or the many schools of philosophy in the orient or the occident.  The condition is widespread, and the public consciousness tremendously diversified, but this state of affairs marks the summation [402] of the period of separativeness and the end, before so many centuries, of this intense distinctiveness of thought.

After noting and watching this trend of affairs for another one hundred years, the Elder Brothers of the race called a conclave of all departments about the year 1500 A.D.  Their object was to determine how the urge to integration, which is essentially the keynote of our universal order, could be hastened, and what steps could be taken to produce that synthesis and unification in the world of thought which would make possible the manifestation of the purpose of the divine Life which had brought all into being.  When the world of thought is unified, then the outer world will fall into a synthetic order.  It should be remembered here that the Masters think in large terms and work in the wider cycles of evolutionary endeavour.  The tiny and temporary  cycles, the small ebb and flow of the cosmic processes do not engage Their attention in the first instance.

At this conclave They had three things to do:

1. To view the divine plan on as large a scale as possible, and refresh Their minds with the vision.

2. To note what influences or energies were available for use in the large endeavour to which They were pledged.

3. To train the men and women who were then probationers, chelas and initiates so that in due time They could have a satisfactory band of assistants on whom They could in future centuries rely.

They had, in connection with these aspirants, two problems:

1. They had to deal with the failure on the part of even the most advanced disciples to preserve continuity of consciousness, a failure even now manifested by even initiates.

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2. The Masters found the minds and brains of chelas curiously insensitive to the higher contacts, and this again is a condition which still prevails.  The chelas, then as now, possessed aspiration, a desire to serve humanity, devotion and occasionally a fair mental equipment, but that telepathic sensitivity, that instinctive response to hierarchical vibration, and that freedom from the lower psychism which are the needed prerequisites to intensive intelligent work were singularly lacking.  For that matter, they are still distressingly so.  Telepathic sensitivity is decidedly on the increase as a result of world conditions and the evolutionary trend, and this is (for the workers on the inner plane) a most encouraging sign, but love of psychic phenomena and failure to differentiate between the vibrations of the various grades of hierarchical workers still greatly hinder the work.

You might here ask and rightly so:  What is this plan?  When I speak of the plan I do not mean such a general one as the plan of evolution or the plan for humanity which we call by the somewhat unmeaning term of soul unfoldment.  These two aspects of the scheme for our planet are taken for granted, and are but modes, processes and means to a specific end.  The plan as at present sensed, and for which the Masters are steadily working, might be defined as follows:—It is the production of a subjective synthesis in humanity and of a telepathic interplay which will eventually annihilate time.  It will make available to every man all past achievements and knowledges, it will reveal to man the true significance of his mind and brain and make him the master of that equipment and will make him therefore omnipresent and eventually open the door to omniscience.  This next development of the plan will produce in man an understanding [404] —intelligent and cooperative—of the divine purpose for which the One in Whom we live and move and have our being has deemed it wise to submit to incarnation.  Think not that I can tell of the plan as it truly is.  It is not possible for any man, below the grade of initiate of the third degree, to glimpse it and far less understand it.  The development of the mechanism whereby a disciple may be en rapport with Those responsible for the working out of the plans, and the capacity to know (and not just dimly sense) that tiny aspect of the whole which is the immediate step ahead and with which cooperation is possible, that can be achieved by all disciples and should be held as the goal before all aspirants.  With the exception of probationary disciples who are not as yet sufficiently stable in their endeavour, all can therefore strive towards achieving continuity of consciousness and at awakening that inner light which, when seen and intelligently used, will serve to reveal other aspects of the Plan and specially that one to which the illumined knower can respond and usefully serve.

To bring this about has been the objective of all training given during the past 400 years, and from this fact you can vision the utter patience of the Knowers of the race.  They work slowly and with deliberation, free from any sense of speed, towards Their objective, but—and herein lies the immediate interest of what I have to communicate—They do have a time limit.  This is based upon the Law of Cycles.  It concerns the operation of certain periods of opportunity which necessarily have their term.  During these times of opportunity, forces, influences, and energies are temporarily at work, and of these the Masters seek to make use.

Looking ahead, during the conclave to which I have made reference, the assembled Servers of the race noted the future coming in of the Aquarian age, with its distinctive energies and its amazing opportunities.  These [405] They noted and They sought to prepare man for that period which would approximate 2500 years, and which could if duly utilised, bring about the unification, consciously and intelligently, of mankind, and so produce the manifestation of what I prefer to call "scientific brotherhood" in contradistinction to the sentimental connotation of the term now so prevalent.

It appeared to Them at that time that it would be necessary to do two things before the coming potencies of the Aquarian age could profitably be employed.  First of all, humanity must have its consciousness elevated to the mental plane; it must be expanded so that it included not only the world of emotion and of feeling but also that of the intellect.  The minds of men must be made widely and generally active, and the entire level of human intelligence must be raised.  It was necessary, secondly, that something should be done to break down the barriers of separateness, of isolation and of prejudice which were keeping men apart from each other and which They foresaw would increasingly do so.  Cycle by cycle, men were becoming more and more wrapped up in their own selves—satisfaction and exclusiveness, and racial pride.  The result of this would lead inevitably to wide cleavages and the erection of world barriers between nation and nation, and between race and race.

This determination of the members of the Hierarchy to train the minds of men more rapidly and to build towards a more synthetic unity brought them to a decision which involved the formation of group units, and brought about the emergence of those groups of workers and thinkers who, through their activities, have so largely governed and moulded our world for the past three or four centuries.  We have therefore, dating from this conclave, the inauguration of definite and specific group work along clearly defined lines, with each group standing [406] for some peculiar presentation of truth and for some aspect of the knowledge of reality.

These groups fall generally into four major divisions; cultural, political, religious, and scientific.  In more modern times three other groups have definitely emerged; they are the philosophical, the psychological, and the financial groups.  Philosophers have, of course, always been with us, but they have been for the most part isolated units who have founded schools characterised by partisanship and separativeness.  Now there are no outstanding figures as in the past, but groups who represent certain ideas.  It is of profound importance that the work of these seven groups of thinkers be recognised as part of the hierarchical programme, designed to produce a certain situation, to bring about certain preparatory conditions, and as playing a definite part in the work of world evolution as far as humanity is concerned.

Under the influence of the different rays as they cycled in and out of activity, little groups of men emerged, played their part in group formation, and disappeared, often unaware of their inherent synthesis and of their co-workers.  As can be seen in any intelligent historical retrospect, the work that they did for the race and their contribution to the pageant of the progress of mankind stands out with clarity.  I have not the time to take this procession of groups, each custodian of a special contribution, and trace for you the work they did or the subjective impulses under which they worked.  I can but indicate the trend of their endeavour, and leave to some illumined student of history the delineation of the golden thread of their spiritual work as they raised the mental standard of the race and put man en rapport with the world in which he lived, opening his eyes not only to the nature of matter and of form but also to the hidden depths of his own being.  Through their activities we [407] now have a humanity in close relation, though not at-one, and a humanity characterised by three things:

1. An amazing interrelation and intercommunication, of which the radio, the press, modern transportation, and the telephone and telegraph are the servants.

2. A wide-spread philanthropic enterprise, and the growth of the sense of responsibility for one's brother, which was totally unknown in the year 1500.  Movements such as the Red Cross, educational foundations, hospitals, and the present economic relief measures to be found in every country are its exoteric manifestations.

3. A division of the entire human family, consciously or unconsciously, into two basic groups:  first, those who stand for the old order of things, who are reactionary, and separative.  They represent separative nationalism, boundaries, servitude, and servile obedience; they exemplify religious sectarianism and dependence upon authority.  They are against all modern innovations and progress.  Secondly, those who vision a unified world wherein love of God means love of one's neighbour, and where the motives underlying all religious, political and educational activities are characterised by a world consciousness and the welfare of the entire body and not of the part.

The unification to which the forward looking people aspire does not involve the neglect of any part, but it does involve the care and nurture of each part in order that it may contribute to the well being of the entire organism.  It involves, for instance, the right government and proper development of every national unit so that it can adequately perform its international duties, and thus form part of a world brotherhood of nations. [408] This concept does not even involve the formation of a world state, but it does involve the development of a universal public consciousness which realises the unity of the whole, and thus produces the determination that each must be for all and all for each as it has been said.  Only in this way can there be brought about an international synthesis which will be characterised by political and national unselfishness.  This universal state of mind will not again inevitably involve the founding of a world or universal religion.  It requires simply the recognition that all formulations of truth and of relief are only partial in time and space, and are temporarily suited to the temperaments and conditions of the age and race.  Those who favour some particular approach to the truth will nevertheless achieve the realisation that other approaches and other modes of expression and terminologies, and other ways of defining deity can be equally correct and in themselves constitute aspects of a truth which is greater and vaster than man's present equipment can grasp and express.  Even the Great Ones Themselves but dimly sense reality and though They are aware of deeper underlying purposes than are Their chelas, yet even They see not the ultimate goal.  They too are forced to use such unmeaning terms in Their teaching as Absolute Reality, and Ultimate Realisation.

Hence, during the past three centuries, group after group has appeared and played its part, and we today reap the benefit of their accomplishment.  Under the cultural group for instance we find emerging the poets of the Elizabethan age, and the musicians of Germany and of the Victorian era.  Groups of artists are likewise to be found, giving us the famous schools which are the glory of Europe.  Two famous groups, one cultural and the other political, also played their parts, the one producing the Renaissance and the other bringing about the French Revolution.  The effects of their work are still [409] to be felt, for the modern humanistic movement with its emphasis upon the past which is completed in the present, and its search for the roots of man's equipment in the earlier trends, harks back to the Renaissance.  Revolution and the determination to fight for the divine rights of man find their prime inaugurating influence and impetus in the revolution in France.  Revolt, the formation of political parties, the class warfare which is so rampant today and the splitting of every country into warring political groups, though sporadic always, have become universal during the past two hundred years, and are all the results of the group activity started by the Masters.  Men have grown thereby and have learnt how to think, and even though they may think wrongly and may initiate disastrous experiments, the ultimate good is inevitable and unavoidable.  Temporary discomforts, passing depressions, war and bloodshed, penury and vice may lead the unthinking into the depths of pessimism.  But those who know and who sense the inner guiding hand of the Hierarchy are aware that the heart of humanity is sound and that out of the present chaos and perhaps largely because of it, there will emerge those competent to deal with the situation and adequate to the task of unification and synthesis.  This period has been occultly called the "age of restoration of what has been broken by the fall".  The time has come when the separate parts can be reunited and the whole stand together again in its earlier perfection.

The religious groups have likewise been many,—so many that their enumeration is hopeless.  We have the groups of Catholic mystics who are the glory of the occident, there are also the protesting Lutherans, Calvinists and Methodists, the Pilgrim Fathers—those sour and earnest men—the Huguenot and Moravian martyrs, and the thousands of modern sects in every group.  These have all served their purpose and have led man to the [410] point of revolt and away from acquiescence in authority.  They have driven man to the stage of thinking for himself by the force of their unique example.  They stood for freedom and the personal right to know.

These latter groups have acted largely under the influence of the sixth and second rays.  The cultural emerged under that of the fourth ray, whilst the first ray has impelled the political activities which have brought such changes in the nations.  Under the fifth and third ray impulses, groups of scientific investigators have arisen, working with the forces and energies that constitute the divine Life, dealing with the outer garment of God, searching from without towards the within, and demonstrating to man his essential unity with all creation and his relationship, intrinsic and vital, with all forms of life.  The names of the individuals in any group are legion and of relatively no importance.  It is the group and its interrelated work that counts.  It is interesting to note that in the scientific group the underlying unity is particularly noticeable, for its members are singularly free from sectarianism and selfish competition.  This cannot be said of the religious and political groups.

In relation to the many nations and the myriads of men on earth, these moulding groups under the various divisions are few in number.  Their personnel, their contribution to the growth of human expression, and their place in the plan can quite easily be traced.  The point to be emphasised is that these have all been motivated from the inner subjective side of life; they have come forth under a divine urge and with a specific work to accomplish; they have all been composed in the primary stage of disciples and initiates of the lesser degrees; they have all been subjectively  guided step by step by their own souls, which have, in their turn, been cooperating consciously with the Hierarchy of Knowers.  This has [411] been the case even when the individual man has been totally unaware himself or his place in the group and that group's divine mission.  Let it be remembered also that there has not been a single failure, though again and again the individual has not been cognisant of success.  The mark of these workers is that they build for posterity.  That those who have followed them have failed, and that those who have responded to this work have not been true to the ideal is disastrously true, but the initial group has uniformly achieved.  This surely negates pessimism and demonstrates the exceeding potency of the subjective activity.

The three groups to which I earlier referred require a word of comment.  Their work is curiously different to that of the other groups and their ranks are recruited from all the ray groups, though the members of the third group (that of the financiers) are found primarily upon the seventh ray, that of ceremonial organisation.  In the order of their emergence, they are the groups of philosophers, psychologists and business men.

The group of philosophers of more modern date are already powerfully moulding thought, whilst the ancient schools of Asiatic philosophers are just beginning to influence western ideas.  Through analysis, correlation and synthesis, the thought power of man is developed and the abstract mind can be unified with the concrete.  Through their work therefore that interesting sensitivity of man, with its three outstanding characteristics of instinct, intellect and intuition is brought to a condition of intelligent coordination.  Instinct relates man to the animal world, intellect unites him to his fellow men, whilst the intuition reveals to him the life of divinity.  All these three are the subject matter of philosophical investigation, for the theme of the philosophers is the nature of reality and the means of knowledge.

The two most modern groups are the psychologists [412] who work under the Delphic injunction "Man, know thyself", and the financiers who are the custodians of the means whereby man can live upon the physical plane.  These two groups necessarily, and in spite of apparent divergences and differences are more synthetic in their foundational aspects, than any of the others.  One group concerns itself with mankind, with the varying types of humanity the mechanism employed, and man's urges, characteristics, and with the purpose—apparent or hidden—of his being.  The other group controls and orders the means whereby he exists, controlling all that can be converted into energy and constituting a dictatorship over all modes of intercourse, commerce and exchange.  They control the multiplicity of form-objects which modern man regards as essential to his mode of life.  Money, as I have before said, is only crystallised energy or vitality,—what the oriental student calls pranic energy.  It is a concretisation of etheric force.  It is therefore vital energy externalised, and this form of energy is under the direction of the financial group.  They are the latest group in point of date, and their work (it should be borne in mind) is most definitely planned by the Hierarchy.  They are bringing about effects upon the earth which are most far reaching.

Now that centuries have elapsed since the conclave in the sixteenth century, these external groups have played their part and performed most notable service.  The results achieved have reached a stage where they are internationally effective, and their influence is not confined to one nation or race.  The Hierarchy is now faced with another situation which requires careful handling.  They must gather up and weld together the various threads of influencing energy and the differing trends of thought power which the work of the groups since the year 1500 has produced.  They have also now to offset some of the effects which are tending towards a further differentiation. [413] This must inevitably be so when force is brought into contact with the material world.  Initial impulses have in them potency both for good and for evil.  As long as the form remains of secondary importance and relatively negligible, we call it good.  Then the idea and not its expression controls.  As time elapses and the energy of the thought makes its impact upon matter and lesser minds seize upon the particular type of energy or are vitalised by it, then evil begins to make its presence felt.  This finally demonstrates as selfishness, separateness, pride and those characteristics which have produced so much harm in the world.

About seventeen years ago the Masters met and came to a momentous decision.  Just as it had been decided at the earlier conclave to gather out of the inchoate masses of men, groups of workers along various lines, and set them the task of elevating humanity and expanding the human consciousness, so now it was felt wise to gather out of the many groups, a group which should contain (as does the Hierarchy itself) men of all races, of all types and tendencies.  This group has a specific mission, and some of the facts about it might be stated as follows:

It is first of all an attempt at an externalisation of the Hierarchy upon the physical plane, or a small working replica of this essentially subjective body.  Its members are all in physical bodies but must work entirely subjectively, thus utilising the inner subjective apparatus and the intuition.  It is to be composed of men and women of all nations and ages, but each one must be spiritually oriented, all must be conscious servers, all must be mentally polarised and alert, and all must be inclusive.

One of the essential conditions imposed upon the personnel of the group is that they must be willing to work without recognition, on the subjective levels.  They must work behind the scenes as do the Great Ones.  Its members [414] therefore must be free from all taint of ambition, and from all pride of race and of accomplishment.  They must be also sensitively aware of their fellowmen and of their thoughts and conditioning environment.

It is a group that has no exoteric organisation of any kind, no headquarters, no publicity, no group name.  It is a band of obedient workers and servers of the WORD—obedient to their own souls and to group need.  All true servers everywhere therefore belong to this group, whether their line of service is cultural, political, scientific, religious, philosophical, psychological or financial.  They constitute part of the inner group of workers for humanity, and of the world mystics, whether they know it or not.  They will be thus recognised by their fellow group members when contacted in the casual ways of world intercourse.

This group gives to the word "spiritual" a wide significance; they believe it to mean an inclusive endeavour towards human betterment, uplift and understanding; they give it the connotation of tolerance, international synthetic communion, religious inclusiveness, and all trends of thought which concern the esoteric development of the human being.

It is a group therefore without a terminology or Bible of any kind; it has no creed nor any dogmatic formulations of truth.  The motivating impulse of each and all is love of God as it works out in love for one's fellow man.  They know the true meaning of brotherhood, without distinction of race.  Their lives are lives of willing service, rendered with utter selflessness and without any reservations.

The personnel of the group is known only to the Elder Brothers of the race, and no register of names is kept, and there are only three main requirements:

1. A certain amount of at-one-ment between the soul and its mechanism is essential, and that inner triplicity, [415] usually dormant in the majority, of soul-mind-brain must be in alignment and active.

2. The brain has to be telepathically sensitive in two directions and at will.  It must be aware of the world of souls and also of the world of men.

3. There must also exist a capacity for abstract or synthetic thought.  This will enable a man to leap over racial and religious barriers.  When this is present also there is an assured belief in the continuity of life and its correlation to the life after death.

To sum up the situation, it must be noted that the groups in the past have stood for certain aspects of truth and have demonstrated certain ray characteristics.  The new group will express all the aspects and have in it members on all the rays.  The majority of the workers in the many groups have carried forward certain details of the plan, and added their quota of energy to the forward urge of humanity, but they have for the most part done this without any true understanding of what they were accomplishing, and without any real comprehension of that body-soul relationship which leads to really intelligent work, unless we except a few prominent mystics such as Meister Eckhart.  They have been primarily groups of personalities, with that added touch of genius which indicates a certain contact with the soul.  The group that is now in process of formation is composed of those who are aware of the fact of the soul, and have established a soul intercourse that is real and lasting; they look upon the mind, emotions and body nature as simply an equipment whereby human contacts can be established, and their work, as they see it, is to be carried forward through the medium of this equipment, acting under the direction of the soul.  They are therefore living souls, working through personalities, and not personalities actuated by occasional soul impulses.  The members of the many groups were all somewhat one-sided [416] and their talents ran along some specific line.  They demonstrated a capacity to write as Shakespeare, to paint like a da Vinci, to produce musical masterpieces like a Beethoven, or to bring about world changes like a Napoleon.  But the new type of group worker is a rounded out individual, with a capacity to do almost anything to which he sets his hand, but with a basic impulse to work on thought levels more than on the physical plane.  He is therefore of use to the Hierarchy as he can be used in a variety of ways, for his flexibility and experience, and his stability of contact can be all subordinated to the group requirements.

The true exponent of this new group type will of course not appear for many decades.  He will be a true Aquarian with a universal touch, an intense sensitivity, a highly organised mental apparatus, an astral equipment which is primarily responsive to the higher spiritual vibrations, a powerful and controlled energy body, and a sound physical body, though not robust in the ordinary use of the term.

What then is the present situation in connection with the integrating group of mystics?  Let me be somewhat explicit.

In every European country, in the United States of America, and in parts of Asia and South Africa are to be found certain disciples, usually unrecognised in the world at large, who are thinking truth.  Let me call your attention to that phrase.  The most important workers in this new group and those who are closest to the Great Ones are those whose daily thought life is oriented by the new ideal.  That this thought life of theirs may work out in definite exoteric activities may be true, but they are first of all and always those who live in and work from the "high and secret place".  Their influence is wielded silently and quietly and they lay no emphasis upon their personalities, upon their own views and ideas, [417] or upon their methods of carrying forward the work.  These possess a full realisation of their own limitations, but are not handicapped thereby, but proceed to think through into objective manifestation that aspect of the vision which it is their mission to vivify into form.  They are necessarily cultured and widely read, for in these difficult transitional times they have to cultivate a world grasp of conditions and possess a general idea of what is going on in the different countries.  They possess in truth no nationality in the sense that they regard their country and their political affiliations as of paramount importance.  They are equipped to organise, slowly and steadily, that public opinion which will eventually divorce man from religious sectarianism, national exclusiveness, and racial biases.

One by one, here and there they are being gathered out and are gathering to them those who are free from the limitations of past political, religious and cultural theories.  They, the members of the one group, are organising these forward looking souls into groups which are destined to bring in the new era of peace and of good will.  These latter who are being influenced by the group members are as yet only a few thousands among the millions of men, and out of the four hundred accepted disciples working in the world at this time, only about 156 are equipped by their thought activity to form part of this slowly forming group.  These constitute the nucleus of what will be some day a dominant force.  During the next twenty-five years their influence will become potent enough to attract political attention, provided those of you who have seen the vision of a powerful subjective body of thinking Souls can speak the needed words, and outline those concepts which will hasten the work of integration, and put the units in this group in touch with one another.  Do your utmost to see that this is done and [418] make this the message and keynote of the work you all do wherever you are.

What should therefore be the work of the immediate present?  Let me outline the programme as far as I can.

The first thing to be done is to strengthen the ties and establish firmly the link between yourselves and all those whom you recognise as possible working disciples in the new group.  To do this, acquaint yourselves with the work of the leaders of groups in the various countries of the world—such as Switzerland, the United States, Holland, Germany and Great Britain.  From their reaction to the vision of this new age type of work you can then make a temporary decision.  Watch them at their work.  Note the emphasis laid by them upon personalities.  If personal ambition seems to govern their activities, if their position is one of a determination to work in the group of mystics because of its novelty or because it gives them a certain standing or because it intrigues their imagination or gives them scope for gathering people around them, then proceed no further, but—preserving silence—leave time and the law to correct their attitude.

Secondly, be receptive towards those who seek you out and seem to vibrate to the same note.  When I say you, I mean the group to which you all subjectively belong.  They will come if you work with decision and sound out the note of unity so clearly that they are in no doubt as to your motives and your disinterested activity.  Some of the 156 who form the present nucleus will be known to you and will work in unison with you, though maybe not in your peculiar field of action.

The picture to be held before your eyes is that of a vast network of groups, working along the many possible lines, but having at their heart or behind them—working silently and persistently  influencing through soul contact—one or more members of the new slowly emerging [419] group.  These focal points through which the Hierarchy is now seeking to work stand together telepathically and exoterically they must work in the completest understanding, preserving always an attitude of non-interference, and leaving each worker free to teach his own group as he sees fit.  The terms used, the methods employed, the types reached, the truths taught, the discipline of life demonstrated concern no one but the working disciple.

The members of this group of new age workers will, however, possess certain general characteristics.  They will impose no enforced dogmas of any kind, and will lay no emphasis upon any doctrine or authorities.  They are not interested in having any personal authority nor do they rest back upon traditional authority, whether religious, scientific, cultural or any other form of imposed truth.  Modes of approach to reality will be recognised and each will be free to choose his own.  No discipline will be imposed by these workers upon those who seek to cooperate with them.  The ideas of any one person or leader as to how the units in his particular sphere of activity should live and work, should meditate and eat, will be regarded as of no special value.  The members of this new group work esoterically with souls, and deal not with the details of the personality lives of the aspirants they seek to inspire.

This is a basic rule and will serve to eliminate many worthy aspirants from this group of world servers now in process of forming.  The tendency to impose one's own point of view indicates a lack of understanding and it will rule many out.

Again, the young and promising aspirants must be sought out and carefully inculcated with the trend of the new ideals.  They must be taught to look for the divine and the good in all—both people and circumstances.  Breadth of vision must be developed and that [420] wide horizon pointed out which will enable the aspirants to live through this transitional period which is now with us, so that when they reach middle life they will stand as pillars of strength in the new world.  Do not narrow them down to the ancient disciplines and teach them not to lay emphasis upon diet, celibacy, times and seasons, and so distract their attention away from the newer and sacred art of being and the wonder of living as a soul.

Forget not that when a man is living as a soul and his entire personality is therefore subordinated to that soul, unselfish purpose, purity of life, conformity to law and the setting of a true example of spiritual living will normally and automatically follow. Food, for instance, is frequently a matter of climatic expediency and of taste, and that food is desirable which keeps the physical body in condition to serve the race. Again, a divine son of God can surely function as freely and as effectively when in the married state as in the celibate; he will however brook no prostitution of the powers of the body to the grosser satisfactions, nor will he offend against established custom, nor lower the standard which the world has set for its highest and best. The issues have been confused and the emphasis has been too often laid upon the physical acts and not upon the life of the actor. When the attention is fixed upon the soul, the physical plane life will be rightly handled. It will be realised that there is greater hindrance to the growth of the man in spiritual being through a critical attitude or a state of self satisfaction than by the eating of meat.

Two rules of life activity must be taught the young aspirant:

He must be taught to focus on constructive activity and to refrain from pulling down the old order of living.  He must be set to building for the future, and to thinking along the new lines.  He must be warned not to waste time in attacking that which is undesirable, but must instead [421] bend all his energies to creating the new temple of the Lord through which the glory may be manifested.  In this way public attention will gradually be focussed upon the new and beautiful, and the old established creations will fall into decay for lack of attention and so disappear.

He must be taught also that partisanship is in no way a sign of spiritual development.  He will not therefore use the words anti this or pro that.  Such terms automatically breed hatred and attack, and effort to resist change.  They put the user on the defensive.  Every class of human beings is a group of brothers.  Catholics, Jews, Gentiles, occidentals and orientals are all the sons of God.

As regards the future of this world group of which we have been speaking much depends upon two things.

First, it is necessary for all those isolated disciples working in every country in the world, to become aware of one another and then to enter into telepathic rapport.  This may seem to you to be a wonderful but impractical vision.  I assure you that this is not so.  The work of establishing this rapport may indeed be slow, but it is an inevitable effect of the growing sensitivity of all the souls who are working in the field of the world.  The first indication of it is that instinctive recognition of those who constitute part of this group when they meet and contact each other in the ways of world intercourse.  There comes to them an immediate flashing forth of the light, an instantaneous electrical interplay, a sudden sensing of a similarity of vision and of objective, or a vital opportunity to aid in and to cooperate with each other in the work in which it is realized that all are interested.

Working disciples everywhere when they meet each other will know at once that their work is identical, and will advise with each other as to where cooperation and [422] supplementary endeavour may be possible.  In about thirty years the interrelation between the units in this group (scattered as they may be all over the world) will be so close that daily they will meet each other at a set time and in the secret place.  This only becomes possible when the triplicity of soul-mind-brain are all aligned in the individual and when each aspect of it can be simultaneously in touch with members of the group.  At present all the souls of the group of mystics do work in unison; a number have succeeded in bringing the soul and the mind also into a close and established relation, but as yet the lowest aspect of this aligned and linking triangle, the physical brain, remains totally unresponsive to the waves of force emanating from the higher aspects of the disciples engaged thus in laying the foundations of the new age civilisation.

It is therefore largely a matter of perfecting the mechanism of the brain so that it can rightly register and correctly transmit the soul impressions and the group purposes and recognitions.  This involves:

1. The awakening into conscious activity of the centre between the eyebrows, called by the oriental student, the ajna centre.

2. The subordinating then of the activity of this centre to that of the head centre, so that the two vibrate in unison.  This produces the establishment of three things:

a. Direct conscious alignment between soul-mind-brain.

b. The appearance of a magnetic field which embraces both the head centres and so definitely affects the pineal gland and the pituitary body.

c. The recognition of this field of dual activity in two ways: as of a light in the head, an interior radiant sun, or as a dynamic centre of energy [423] [423]through which the will or purpose aspect of the soul can make itself felt.

3. The development of a facility which will enable a man to:

a. Use the mind in any direction he chooses, turning it externally towards the world of phenomena, or internally towards the world of spiritual being.

b. Produce consciously and at will a corresponding responsiveness in the physical brain, so that it can register accurately any information coming from the physical world, and the emotional or astral world.

c. Discriminate intelligently between all these spheres of sentient activity.

This will all be eventually covered by a new psychological approach which will emerge out of the old and be a blend of the mechanical schools, the introspective and the more purely oriental position, plus the conclusions of two new schools which will shortly arise but which are as yet too small to warrant a name.  They are in the embryo stage.  One school will deal with the energy aspects of the individual and his responsiveness to the energy of the universe in which he is immersed; the other will consider man as a unit of electricity.  Both will be quite one-sided but the contributions of the various schools will some day be unified into one synthetic presentation.

The second requirement which will establish relation between the working disciples in this group is the capacity to preserve a constant and sequential recollection of both the inner and the outer life.  We call it continuity of consciousness, and by this we mean the power to be fully aware of all happenings in all spheres and departments of man's being during the entire twenty-four hours of the day.  As yet this is far from being the [424] case.  There is no real awareness of existence during the hours of sleep.  The dream life as related is as full of illusion as any of the more definitely lower psychic experiences. The slowly growing interest in dreams from the standpoint of psychology and the investigation of their probable source are the first weak attempts towards establishing the awareness on a really scientific basis.  There is as yet no conscious registering of mental activity during such times, for instance, as when the emotional body holds the centre of the stage.  With what is the mind occupied during a long period of emotional upset?  It has, we know, its own life and its laws.  Again, what are the activities of the soul when the personality is occupied exclusively with its own affairs? Is it impossible for you to vision a time when the development of consciousness will have reached the stage where there will be a sentient reaction in all the departments of man's nature and all of it recorded by the brain?  Already men are aware both of physical plane activity and emotional aliveness simultaneously.  That is for the majority a common and ordinary condition.  Where two activities can be registered at once, why not three or even four?  Such is the future ahead for the race, and the disciples, actively employed, will be the first to express and demonstrate this extended consciousness.

Thus telepathic interplay and extended sentiency must be developed and are closely interlinked with each other.

I have therefore pointed out the immediate future development of the individual disciple.  What lies ahead in the immediate future for the group?