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SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - Part 1

SECTION TWO

PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES

BY THE TIBETAN

[105]

To B. S. D.

November 1931

BROTHER OF MINE:

I would say to you the following words: Waste not time in the realisation of the years spent in occult work, nor in feverish anticipation of a few more years of directed occult effort under my tuition. The time equation has counted mayhap too largely in your thoughts, my brother, and in the work of the present moment must the future possible developments be forgotten. For you should come the forgetting of the form side in meditation, for your intuition needs awakening. Working without attachment to results is a hard lesson for all disciples to learn but one well worth while. My special instructions for you, therefore, may cause you temporary surprise but later you will see the reason. They are as follows:

First, drop all form out of your meditation work and sit in perfect silence with your attention focussed upon the Lord of Love—which is the soul. Steady your thought processes (which for you is not hard) and then drop the use of the seed thought. Listen and aspire. Close each meditation by pouring out love to all beings. This outflowing thought is a great releaser and each of you in the group of disciples whom I am seeking to train needs release from something. For you, it is release from form in your work of service. You will know to what I am referring.

Secondly, until the time of the Full Moon of May, cease from all breathing exercises. You have followed them for years and need a respite. Nature grows and progresses through cyclic activity and cyclic rest, and, before I can carry you forward to the next unfoldment, I seek to have you rest from mental pressure and e'en from that devotion which has governed much of your life experience. Till May, centre your thought, your meditation [106] and your service on being and see if the reward is not great. Question not this suggestion but—in the thought of being—find your way into the centre of life from which all occult work is done. To be enjoined to be is an honour, brother of mine; it will carry you at this time further than intellection, pranayama, and that potent longing for spiritual fulfilment which is your outstanding divine quality and in some ways your main hindrance. I am here for a cycle to teach you to the best of my ability and I prepare those who respond for the service of the next life cycle. Ask of me, therefore, questions if you understand not the above injunctions and I will answer. You will find this line of more quiescent activity hard at first, for well-organised is your mind and life but, until May, simply live and stand in spiritual Being and love all beings. Later I will outline for you that training and that breathing exercise which seems to me to be for you the way. Understand that an interlude is being given to you wherein you cease from the active exercises of more than thirty years of aspiration and endeavour, so that a calmness of rhythm may be achieved. Later, upon that accumulated knowledge of years, a fresh structure of knowledge may be erected and a new and higher rhythm be imposed. The brain cells need rest, for a certain amount of mental fatigue exists.

June 1933

You have acceded to my request, my brother, and I believe see now the reason for my method of training you. The love aspect of your soul has been released somewhat, though some of the inner fret for the outward achievement still remains and hinders you on the way of realisation. One thing I would remind you and this perhaps will answer some of your questions. I view the achievement of my group of disciples from the point of the average of the group effect and not so much from the success or the non-success of its units. That result and success must, also, demonstrate sequentially as it comes into manifestation. The first sphere of focus was on mental levels. There you are unable to judge for yourself of its success or non-success, for you have not, as yet, developed mental vision. I tell you that the group already exists as a working factor on those levels and that [107] perhaps is much. Its note is sounding and its influence is being organised. It will in the next few years organise itself also on astral levels, on the emotional plane, and you must bear in mind that here all forms are in danger of succumbing to the Great Illusion. These years will, therefore, be critical in the group life and this must be borne carefully in mind. No one in the group must permit himself to be glamoured.

All this you are sensing, my brother, and this should indicate to you your progress in subjective sensitivity. Later, a group relationship will be established and a group accomplishment stabilised which will warrant attention from the world of men. Waste not time in anxiety as to the phenomenal achievement. That must inevitably come if the fiery aspiration of each of you and the power to persist is steadfastly nurtured.

You can now resume more active meditation and a breathing exercise which I will give to you. In your meditation seek to keep the whole process in the head and remember that for you the problem is to become an "extrovert of the heart type" instead of being, as you are, an "introvert of the head type." Therefore, for you the way of release is the way of Love and the note of love should colour all your meditation. Proceed therefore carefully to follow all instructions, remembering that, for you, I seek to avoid all emphasis on the form side. The subject of your meditation could be summed up in the following phrases:

"I pledge myself to the Path of Love. I demand of my soul that I, the Spirit in form, shall act as a channel for compassion and an instrument for love until I know myself to be Love itself. I am that Love. With pure intent I serve. This love and zeal in me must feed the aspiration of my fellowmen. To this—in knowledge full—I pledge myself."

Your gift to this group of co-disciples is that fiery, dynamic, zealous aspiration which is the spiritual quality of the sixth ray, which governs your personality.

June 1934

BROTHER OF MINE:

It is a year since I gave you any definite instructions and the time has now come when certain changes can be made. The [108] progress towards heart development has proceeded well and the heart centre is more alive than heretofore. You are awakening to the consciousness of your brothers' reactions and can more readily identify yourself with them. Do you not see, my brother, how earlier you lived so much in the consciousness which is focussed in the mind that your brother's problems were to you more important than he himself? Do you not now realise that your mental ability to grasp his situation interested you more than his troubled soul? Do you not also realise that your deep desire to find the Master and to have with Him a definite contact has its basis in an intellectual doubt? The satisfaction of your mental longing to verify the existence of the Masters and to ascertain your own position upon the ladder of evolution was—in those days—stronger than your love of humanity and of service. This condition is now largely remedied and any thinking along the old lines is more in the nature of a relapse of thought than a step backward on the path of progress.

All growth is cyclic and one progresses from step to step in spiral fashion and this ever involves a retracing (apparently) of one's steps. This is, however, an illusion.

I wish today to give you a breathing exercise which will blend and fuse the energies of the centres above the diaphragm. No thought of the centres below the diaphragm need enter your mind. In order, brother of old, that I may know that you understand this work and in order that your brothers in my group may profit from your experience, I would ask you to write a paper upon this triple breathing exercise.... I wish you to explain the purpose and the intent of this exercise and note its effect upon the animation of your vital and psychic bodies....

January 1935

MY ACCEPTED BROTHER:

I would have you note my form of address. I can now use it, because you yourself have reached a point—long desired in your experience—wherein you now know yourself to be on the Path of Accepted Discipleship. I could not earlier call you this as the outer recognition of the inner status (as well as of inner [109] states of consciousness which is another name for the same thing) must come ever from within the disciple's own nature; we, the teachers, are only permitted to put the seal of recognition upon the fact afterwards. You have for years worked actively upon the mental plane both with and in yourself and also with the many whose lives you are allowed to touch and whose guide upon the probationary path you are. Yet always there has been an ache and a longing for a more emotional and sensitive contact and for an increased heart activity. This you are now acquiring and as a result of the past two years' work (for you only began to shift your focus at the close of 1932), you have begun to link up head and heart. When this is done through the activity of the will and when it expresses itself practically in service, then a man passes on to the Path of Discipleship. He can then find his way also into the group of one of the Great Ones, provided there is a vacancy. This has happened in your case and this you also know for yourself, and hence I can hail you as my accepted brother.

I seek to make a change in your breathing exercise and also in your meditation work and I would ask you in connection with both these to keep a register of results and, at the close of six months, note the general average of the results, any phenomenal effects and any growth in consciousness which you feel can be definitely traced to these exercises. These effects should be looked for, in your case, in the psychic consciousness. It is in this department of your being that there is a measure of arrested growth. The mental tension for thirty years has been such that the free play of the psychic forces has been inhibited.

You are of an age and a mental stability that will make it safe and beneficial if you seek—under my supervision—for a measure of psychic unfoldment. But along that line we will proceed slowly, my brother; for the next six months we will simply follow the method of a general psychic "washing" or purging by the means of the seven dynamic or electric breaths (anent which I will instruct you) sent forth by an act of the will. These will sweep through your whole being and produce a general stimulation that will eventuate in a more general sensitivity. Note, therefore, your response to that inner consciousness [110] and, during the coming half year, keep a most careful spiritual diary, noting every psychic happening, recording each time you may tune in telepathically on the need or with the thought of those around you, putting down every seeming extension of the ordinary sense consciousness and writing down even those things which seem to you speculative and of no real moment. Discriminative recognition is for you the immediate goal. Reveal yourself to yourself on paper, not as regards your longings and aspirations but as regards your growth in sensitivity. Attempt to tune in more consciously with the consciousness of your group brothers. Your diary will interest others and be the guarantee to you of your own development.

You have made real progress, brother of mine, but have only, however, broken ground. For the remainder of your life prepare for the future. Work at the development of a greater psychic response to life itself and to that inner awareness which will make you react to need from the angle of a rounded out equipment; it will be of a psychical nature which can identify itself with the reactions of others and a mental stability which will enable you to work as a soul. Thus you will learn to avail yourself of the knowledge, gained psychically, and to serve with increased effectiveness.

Later, I will (if you progress in sensitivity) train you in the art of psychometry, but the time is not yet.

That the light of your soul and the light emanating from the Master's group may flood your heart and energise your life is the thought which lies in my heart for you.

June 1935

BROTHER OF OLD:

I seek today to make a somewhat careful analysis of the condition of your psychic centres—from the solar plexus upwards. You are passing through a dual process of psychic detachment and, at the same time, of psychic unfoldment. You need to remember that the phases of detachment are many and varied. Some of them imply a detachment from the world of outer sensuous attachment or they may imply (as in your own case) a temporary and relative detachment from the world of intellectual contacts. This is a detachment based on an inner [111] attitude and not on any outer condition or state of affairs. This is taking place in order to round out and enrich your psychic and emotional life. There is a real danger to the earnest student in the widespread attitude of mind which regards the world of the emotions and of sensitive response to subtle psychic phenomena as necessarily retrogressive in effect. It can (and often does) mark a pathway fraught with psychic disaster. At the same time, it can indicate a newly awakening response and sensitive awareness to other aspects of the divine life which are—in their place and rightful use—as divine and as needed and as expressive of divinity as any of the aspirational objectives of the devotee.

The psychic life of a disciple is a definite part of his spiritual expression. It is only when it is uncontrolled, over-emphasised and overestimated that it is undesirable. It is a hindrance when it is misused or regarded as a substitute for other forms of divine expression. Then it produces that which is undesirable and immerses the disciple in the world of glamour and illusion. The psychic powers are valuable aids to service when rightly developed and sanely used; they can be unfolded safely by the man who is mentally polarised and rightly oriented towards service.

You are no doubt surprised that you are the first that I have chosen out of this particular group of disciples to be prepared for psychic work. My reason is that under your outer reserve and your strong mental polarisation there exists a powerful psychic body at a relatively high state of development. This you have never used in this life but it was brought to its present stage of unfoldment in earlier lives. So strong have been your psychic tendencies that your soul chose in this life to balance and round out your personality by placing the emphasis upon the mind aspect. It was, however, your past psychic links which led you into the organisation whose work you have aided for some years—an organisation whose work is predominantly carried out on psychic and astral levels. This should be proof to you of the accuracy of my diagnosis.

Psychic unfoldment, when not originating in the solar plexus must be brought about by right control of the ajna, throat, heart and solar plexus centres by the spiritual man, [112] seated in the head. The ajna centre is, in your case, very little awakened. It is quiescent and revolving slowly. The pituitary body is, therefore, somewhat subnormal. The solar plexus centre is awakened but you have paid little attention to it as a means of contact and only during the past two years have you begun to bring it into submission to the head centre and this through the cultivation of compassion. The throat centre is lethargic in its movement but could be easily aroused into activity and the heart centre is rapidly awakening. Therefore, brother of old, we have the following situation to consider; this I will try to picture to you in a tabulation:

The Head Centre . . . . . . . . 40% awakened

The Ajna Centre . . . . . . . . 15% awakened

The Throat Centre . . . . . . . 60% awakened

The Heart Centre . . . . . . . . 50% awakened

The Solar Plexus Centre . . . 75% awakened

You see, therefore, that for the present the ajna centre is the one which should receive immediate attention. Our problem is to awaken it and set its two major activities into motion. These are, in your case:

1. Its power to project thoughtforms.

2. Its capacity to act as an organ of clairvoyance.

I will ask you to do the following breathing exercise every day prior to doing your meditation work.... You can do this exercise twice a day but no more because it is very powerful. It will soon bring into greater vibratory activity the quiescent ajna centre. Should headache or tension supervene, stop the work for a day or two and then resume. Preserve ever the attitude of the onlooker and watch not for results. They will be there but at first only I will be in a position to note them.

My brother, the next two years hold in them for you much of inner testing and the achievement of the subtle sensitivity to the voice of the Teacher which will enable you to work with greater ease on the subjective side of life. I have proved your sincerity of purpose and for many years you have diligently set your face towards the light. But, brother of old, you have walked the Path with rigidity and not with that supple ease [113] [113] which negates fatigue and which is the hallmark of the trained athlete—for that is what the disciple should be. You have seen the need to serve and have realised the field of service which is for you the rightful place of effort, but you have rendered that service in set and crystallised fashion and have been too often unduly objective and not sufficiently moved by opportunity. You have served from a rigid sense of duty but you must now learn to serve with the loving spontaneity which carries all before it. The fluidity of the true disciple must be your goal and that out-going spirit which produces the magnetic server. Your magnetism and your radiation need enhancing; that will take place as you transit out of the effort to unfold and to manifest divinity into that more advanced condition which is expressed by the words to "stand in spiritual Being." There may also come into your life (as it does into the life of all true servers) an interlude or cycle of experience which may temporarily negate your present cycle of influence but this should only be preparatory to a greater power in service.

As to your meditation, my brother, after you have finished the breathing exercise, proceed then to meditation, beginning your work at as high a point as possible. Choose for yourself a seed thought each month, keeping a record of those chosen.... Think deeply upon the embodied idea and carry your thoughts forward and onward and upward (choose whichever word conveys to you the deepest meaning) until you reach as abstract a point as you can achieve. When you can go no further and have entered the world of abstraction, then stay poised in thought and hold the mind steady in the light for as long a period as you can. Watch your thought processes as you do this and note anything new or especially intuitive which you may register during this time of waiting. Keep a strict record of the ideas which may come into your mind and note them down each day for your spiritual diary.

In closing this instruction, brother of mine, will you remember that the lonely way is also the lighted way. Loneliness is an illusion which seeks to thwart the efforts of the server; it is a glamour which can seriously impair true vision. That you may walk the Way in peace and light and that power in service may be yours is the desire of my heart for you.

[114]

January 1936

I do not seek to change your work for the next six months, my fellow-disciple. I outlined to you in June 1935 a full quota of meditation work. Your growth in understanding has been real, though the ajna centre has yet resisted effort. The main result has been an intensification of the heart centre's activity, but this will eventually have a reflex action upon the ajna centre. Any of the centres which have allied closely with them certain of the major ductless glands and at the same time have no large organ (such as the heart or stomach) connected with them develop more slowly and are more carefully protected in the process than are the centres with a major physiological organ closely connected with them. For instance, the thymus gland is connected with the heart centre and the pancreas with the solar plexus centre. At the same time, the energy pouring through those centres can be deflected into certain large physical organisms—such as the heart and the stomach. These centres, therefore, when being developed or stimulated, carry far less physiological danger than those which are not so related. The ajna centre is related to the pituitary body but there is no large physical organism to carry off the energy contacted; the etheric web is, therefore, in this locality specially reinforced and the activity of the centre more slowly generated. This is interesting and reassuring. It is in hints such as the above that the real teaching is given.

So, my brother, go forward along the same lines, earlier indicated, until I give you your next instruction; study with care the hints given to you and to your co-disciples.

June 1936

There are two thoughts in my heart in connection with you, my brother, and two practical matters which I have in my mind to say to you. I would have you note the careful wording of the above phrase because it has teaching value in it for all of you.

Before I tell you what these two thoughts are, I want to give you a word of commendation, knowing that you desire it [115] not and knowing also that you do most certainly seek always to act under the urge and the inspiration of your own soul. You work and conform to the requirements, not from any specific idea of pleasing me or even of producing further integration of yourself into the group of your co-disciples but from a sense of duty and of rightness of activity. Nevertheless, I seek to commend you for your quality of steadfastness—a steadfastness in which you persist in the face of much psychic disappointment, if I may call it so, and the fact that there appears to be little phenomenal response to your constant effort. You seek to keep your eyes off yourself and simply to do that which must be done and which you have been induced to believe is the way for you—as well as for all true disciples.

Years ago, my brother, you sought more eagerly for the good results of your activity. Now you are just as active but you are willing to leave the results unconsidered. This is well and very good. However, I tell you that there are results and perhaps they can begin to be clarified in your mind. Two results I can myself indicate to you and I choose these two with deliberation because they are related to me and to your work with me, your teacher and your friend. First, I have accepted you into my own group in the technical sense and you are now an accepted disciple (chela) in my group.... Secondly, I have told you and your brothers that I am in process of preparing you for initiation.

I am reminding you of these two facts for the following reason: You must enter upon the next cycle of activity with set purpose, clear vision and unswerving attention to facts. You have ended one cycle of effort last month at the time of the Full Moon of May. You are entering now upon another cycle. I would have you keep this steadfastly in mind and go forward to freer service, greater understanding and clearer insight. You have laid a firm foundation.

The two thoughts which come into my heart to tell you can be summarised as follows. Note that these thoughts come from my heart and the suggestion from my mind. Herein lies a hint as to your work in the future for those who look to you for assistance in their spiritual life.

1. You need to work now more definitely and more confidently as an accepted disciple. What do I mean by that statement? [116] I mean that you should work in the realisation that—because of this definite acceptance—you are linked with the Hierarchy of Masters and, therefore, the quality of the hierarchical service to humanity must also be expressed by and through you. What is this quality? Wisdom, expressing itself intelligently through love. Upon this statement you should ponder. Your service is ever intelligent (highly so) for you have much knowledge as the result of ancient experience and deep thought and study in this life. That knowledge must, however, be translated into wisdom through the dynamic power of a living love. I use no further terms to express this idea. That sentence should provide you with much food for thought.

2. The second thought which comes to you from my heart is to urge you to remember that chelaship (discipleship) involves responsibility, and that in its turn is developed through suffering. This leads inevitably to detachment. That process of detachment will go forward in connection with all in the group and must entail difficulty. This difficulty may involve a constant stream of minor problems and detachments which will colour ceaselessly your life of service, your life in the home, and your contacts in the world. This calls perhaps for a higher quality of faith and of courage than do drastic purgings. But I have no fears for you, my brother on the Path. You have a faith of tempered steel which cannot break. Remember, however, that where the tide of love is thwarted, there might happen a temporary warping of your nature. You will understand whereof I speak and this sentence conveys to you a needed hint. Let love pour through you and all is well.

The suggestions which I seek to make are based upon past instructions. Since June, 1935, we have set ourselves one technical achievement and one that still remains unachieved for the majority of advanced humanity. This is the awakening of the ajna centre. Your major need and the thing which would arouse that centre to usefulness lies—for you—in the power to visualise.

The second thing which will integrate your nature and increase your magnetic and spiritual usefulness lies in the unfoldment of the creative imagination. How shall this be done? The two are closely allied. Visualisation and the creative imagination [117] are related. A great deal of your problem in this life (where your esoteric unfoldment is concerned) will be solved when these two are better understood by you and when the play of these two forces produces in you an inner re-adjustment, a re-alignment and an externalisation of your subjective life. Will you think deeply upon this matter, my brother?

January 1937

BROTHER OF MINE:

I am glad that you regard yourself as sensitive to my vibration, for so you are. But not as often as you think. It is so easy for aspirants to confound the second ray vibration—as it expresses itself through a second ray group such as my group of disciples—with my individual vibration. Disciples need to train themselves to distinguish:

1. The vibration of the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.

2. The vibration of the Master M. or the Master K.H. should They happen to use the ray vibration for purposes of stimulating a group.

3. My vibration, which is naturally strongly coloured by the second ray.

4. The vibration of a second ray group which is an aggregate of all the notes and tones of the disciples in the group.

5. The vibration of advanced second ray disciples. This can at times be confused with mine.

6. The vibration of sixth ray groups which respond to a second ray vibration. Their work lies predominantly on the astral plane and is contacted relatively easily.

A consideration of the above may indicate to you something of value. Curiously enough you and your fellow-disciple B.S.W. represent the two extreme poles in this process of theoretical recognition. You both recognise a certain contact yet, practically, B.S.W. is more sensitive to my vibration than you are; he loses much, however, by an imposed impersonality to it; you lose much by being too sure at times.

[118]

In connection with this matter of sensing vibration, it is of value to remember that all sensing is naturally and normally an astral or an emotional reaction. In considering my group, I am impressed (yes, and somewhat amused) by the effort of some of you—and of you, in particular—to repudiate emotional or astral sensitivity. Some of you admit it but regard it as undesirable; others consider it as something to be inhibited or to be unexpressed and ignored. Few of you, if any, look upon the astral body as a divine expression of reality with its definite and specific uses.

These questions which I have imposed upon your minds are in the nature of what might be called "catch" questions. The astral body is—in its time and place—of as real value, purpose and usefulness as the mind. It serves to relate the higher impression to the lower and you cannot record my vibration in the physical brain consciousness except through its mediation. You can be aware of my vibration upon the plane of the soul and your mind consciousness can be impressed by it. Unless, however, the sensory body, the emotional vehicle, is also active in the right sense (negative to the world of the senses and receptive to mental impression) that impression will not be registered in the brain or waking consciousness.

Much that you say in your communications in the form of written papers upon this subject deals with the effect that your work and life has upon others through your manipulation of the forces with which disciples have to learn to work, and which are productive of real benefit to others as they study them and watch the reactions called forth. It is of value, however, to note the differing type of reactions evoked when:

1. You work with those subordinate to you upon the Path, those who are the average people or the probationers who are treading the Path for the first time. With this type of person you have much to do. Is their effect upon you of the most desirable kind?

2. Your inter-relation with those who are your equals upon the Path and those whose vibration occultly "neutralises" yours, or "parallels in intensity" yours and consequently evokes from you (as evidence from them of status) no [119] reaction practically, except a sense of well-being or comradeship.

3. Your recognition of those ahead of you upon the Path who can—if they so choose—call forth from you or evince in you a powerful response.

We are beginning to deal with the more occult subtleties in our work and for these you must be prepared. Your papers and replies to the questions given to you deal primarily with your work in connection with your spiritual inferiors. How about your spiritual equals and superiors? Reread your questions and replies in this light and see what response is then evoked in you. The initiate of the fifth degree in Atlantean times had to evidence the right use of emotion. In Aryan times, the initiate of the second degree has to evidence this. Are you, my brother, prepared to say that this evidence can be produced?

You entered this group work as the result of serious and earnest seeking, ancient karmic ties, much questioning which wrested response from your soul and the earned right of a pledged server who had worked steadfastly alone for many years. You brought to this group activity certain assets of a pronounced nature and certain liabilities, equally pronounced—as have all the group members. My task is to use the assets in the group and to aid you in relinquishing the liabilities.... I would ask you, therefore, to ponder on this matter, standing as the soul upon the narrow razor-edged path between the pairs of opposites—your assets and your liabilities—viewing them with complete detachment. The occult sentences in which I would like to state your problem and its solution are as follows:

"The magnet swings, and swinging, fails to touch the pleading hands, held forth for help. It swings in heaven high, held by the soul—serene and unafraid—whose will is firm, whose eyes are clear, whose heart is slowly opening to a distant sound—a sound of pain and sorrow, of weakness and distress.

"The magnet drops into the mass of clutching hands. It disappears from view. Disturbance then occurs. The soul, [120] whose eyes serene have looked upon the far horizons of the world, withdraws its gaze. Both eyes are focussed on the tumultuous group of seekers after truth. The soul searches for the magnet and sees it not, for it is hidden in the forms of many men. The soul descends and walks the way of earth and not the ways of mind. The far horizon disappears. The vision just before the eyes succeeds; the immediate takes the place of that which has been distant. And in that place immediate, the magnet reappears."

July 1937

MY BROTHER:

The mental body in your case is governed by fifth ray energy. This is a pronounced condition and constitutes much of your life difficulty. It is, in the case of all aspirants thus conditioned mentally, the paramount cause of their non-magnetic behaviour, using that word in its psychological implications. I would remind you that being non-magnetic at your stage of development means that (even though you may have some measure of soul contact) you cannot radiate that soul life to others as you would like to do, for your dominant fifth ray mental body (the Ray of Concrete Science, as you know) is insulated, isolated and has a natural tendency to that discrimination which leads to separativeness. The reverse effect is also true. The radiation of others can be also shut off and hence your inability to register telepathic impressions. The value of a fifth ray mind is however very great, for it means a keen and useful mind and (ponder on this) an open door to inspiration.

The astral or emotional body is conditioned by the sixth ray of devotion or of idealism, but this can be most easily transferred and transformed under the influence of the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. Your task this life is to make this possible so that, in your next life, you can have an astral body conditioned by the second ray. Your ability to go forward in the face of obstacles in order to attain your ideal is your outstanding asset, and one that will land you eventually at your goal. Your major [121] difficulty, at this time, is your fifth ray mind. Is this not true, my brother?

You have a third ray (the Ray of Intelligent Activity) physical body. This is largely controlled, interiorly, by your fifth ray mind. Again you see the dominance of this type of energy in your equipment of expression. Your rays are, therefore:

1. The soul ray—the third Ray of Active Intelligence.

2. The personality ray—the sixth Ray of Devotion.

3. The ray of the mind—the fifth Ray of Concrete Science.

4. The ray of the astral body—the sixth Ray of Devotion.

5. The ray of the physical body—the third Ray of Activity.

This analysis should throw much light upon your problem for you will note the dominance of the third major ray and the sixth minor ray of devotion.

January 1938

MY BROTHER:

I have earlier indicated to you the point of view from which I personally gauge the capacity and growth of the group and from that angle I am pleased with the progress you have made. During the past few years I have many times spoken to you with frankness and even with apparent harshness. This I have done in an effort to galvanise you to a greater oriented reaction to the urge of your soul and thus draw away from you the two factors which have blocked the free intercourse which should exist between your soul and your personality. I have ever hinted. I do not voice my suggestions in clear words at all times for my object is always to evoke the activity of your higher Self, thus exacting the correct type of obedience. What are these two factors?

1. A life activity which, though somewhat balanced by the work done in my group, has nevertheless had a restricting effect and which does not succeed in evoking the highest powers of your soul. You have tried to meet this situation and to raise the general tone, but one lone disciple is hard put to it to offset the vibration of a powerful [122] astrally polarised group. Do you know to what I here refer?

2. A life tendency towards depression which you have amazingly offset by negation and a persistent attitude of service. It has nevertheless complicated your life pattern and yet has been one of your major educators.

This life experience has netted you big results and you will enter upon the next cycle of phenomenal existence with much upon which to draw, and having worked out many life relations during this particular incarnation. What have been your major gains in this life?

First of all, the shift of your life emphasis from the outer objective work to the inner subjective realities. In order to accomplish this, you came into incarnation in restricted and limited surroundings so that there might be no dominant obstructing outer attractions; you were, therefore, free to concentrate upon the inner realities. You have largely profited by this experience and your subjective orientation is stabilised upon a rightful basis. Only one major adjustment remains to be made and one major sacrifice. Your problem is, as you know, to effect this readjustment without producing the material suffering of those dependent upon you.

Secondly, you have oriented the astral body to the higher values and impressions and have done it so successfully that your emotional sensitivity to others is now definitely a working asset. This sensitivity I would have you develop into still greater usefulness through the awakening of the heart centre and a renewed interest in the Way of the Heart. To this end, I will give you a meditation in this personal instruction which I would have you follow until further notice.

Thirdly, you have in this life stepped off the probationary path on to the Path of Accepted Discipleship and have made good progress upon it. The accentuation of the times and your own intensity have together sufficed to carry you a long way towards the goal and this I think you are beginning to realise—much to your own surprise at times. The recognition of facts—spiritual and subjective facts—is part of the needed training of all disciples; the recognition of a physical plane fact requires no such training in sensitivity. The recognition of spiritual [123] realities requires both training and formulated definite expression.

The past year has not been an easy one for you, my brother. You have suffered in many ways, known to you and recognised by me but by no one else. I have stood by and watched and at times have strengthened you when and where I could and twice I definitely succeeded in aiding you. Do you know the occasions when this happened? Training in the registering of offered and accepted aid is sometimes of value to disciples of your type and hence I am pointing out what I attempted to do. I would have you work during the coming year at accustoming yourself to my vibration. It will increase your subjective sensitivity so to do. That is the true value or permanent gain.

In connection with the occult sentences I gave you a year ago and which I promised to discuss with you, the following comments may prove of value. The main lesson of your life has been the cultivation of the power to respond to the distant sound of human pain. This I referred to in the words "the slowly opening heart." For two reasons, this response of the heart has not been an easy thing for you to do. One is the fact that in your last life you over-emphasised the intellect and thus came into incarnation with a pre-disposition to polarise yourself in the mind nature, with consequent detachment from human touch and sympathetic contact. The other is a subconscious recognition that if you "descended to the unhappy ways of human sympathy," you possess a capacity for identification with your brothers and for sharing their pain which would make you phenomenally uncomfortable. This, in your earlier years, served to hold you away from people, and led you to dwell on the plane of thought—detached, serene and isolated. The past ten years have seen you change all this; though you are not now so comfortable in yourself, you are open to others and sensitive to them in a very real manner.

Next, the realisation that "both eyes are focussed on the world of human pain" is steadily becoming yours. You are learning that only in true self-forgetfulness (forgetfulness of the soul's goal as well as of all personality goals) will be for you any real consummation, and that humanity is of far greater importance than the individual human being. As The Old [124] Commentary says: "The focus now is true and real, for both the eyes, the left and the right, are turned upon the ways of men and in this way the truth is clearly seen."

Then, we come to the words, "that which is distant fades from view and the immediate present looms." One of the most difficult tasks which faces any disciple is to exchange the abstract vision of future glory and reward for the immediate duty and goal and to learn the spiritual values of the immediate moment as they are to be found in the foreground of daily living. I can remember the time, my brother, when it was hard for you to identify yourself with the problem of the hour, so occupied were you with the Hierarchy, its personnel and plans, and with your relation to the unseen Master. Perhaps in the right adjustment which you have been successful in bringing about, you may have forgotten that time of distant and difficult striving. But I have not. You have to lose sight of the far-off spiritual possibility in the service of the hour. This you have learnt to do in no small measure, only to make the discovery that this path of service and of self-forgetfulness brings you by a long and weary way back to us.

Finally, "thus the magnetic life again holds sway." This time, however, the magnetism is not that of the soul in its own high place but that of the spiritualised personality in the ways of daily, earthly contact. It is the development of this "magnetic life" to which I call you afresh—for the remainder of this life and its succeeding cycles....

January 1939

There has been much questioning in your mind during the past few months and also much mental discomfort, if I might so express it. There has been, at the same time, a steady adherence to the chosen way and to your group brothers. You are still, however, under the influence of an ancient thoughtform, forgetting that one of the tasks of a disciple is to free himself from these holding forms. This thoughtform leads you to look, aye, to demand results of a phenomenal nature; it incites you to believe and urges you to demand that your years of devotion, your personality energy and your astral force (a strong combination, [125] my brother!) should be rewarded by a recognition from and a contact with a Member of the Hierarchy. You look for this, not in order to feel any personal satisfaction or prideful reaction but as a justified and right reward of patient effort and true occult obedience.

Yet, my brother, you have had all you asked for if you could but recognise it. You know who I am and surely, therefore, the recognition for which you asked has been accorded you and you are aware of that for which you are being prepared by your soul, by me and through the chosen group work. Yet in all of this, you take no joy nor find any rest. Should you not realise the truth of what I say, I would ask you to reflect awhile and maybe in time illumination will come.

The group work is not easy for you. It is hard for an Englishman to free himself from his national assurances and prejudices, as it is for the nationals of all highly developed countries. But in this work and at your stage of spiritual awareness, the inclusiveness of the life realisation should bar out insularity. For this you must strive, and for you the keynote is the conviction that all men are brothers—a thing most easy to say and to hold theoretically but most difficult to express as a living factor in one's life.

We are going to work with frankness henceforth and with freedom, and I—your Master and your friend—will mince no words with you or with any of my group. There is not time, such is the immediate urgency to train workers and it is surely needless with a group such as this.

You will remember that I gave much time to the consideration of the rays which governed the various aspects and vehicles of each of the group members, and I trust that a careful analysis of what I said has enabled each of you to know yourselves and to understand your problems more truly and more fully. Today I seek to indicate the vehicles of force through which the two major rays are predominantly focussed, reminding you that the task is to relate two energies and three forces in such a manner that you become, in fact, a divine manifestation. Let me here be precise.

First, your egoic or soul ray focusses itself in and through your fifth ray mental body. This—as I told you in an earlier [126] instruction—has given you your defined mental focus, your critical attitude and your isolation, relatively speaking. It is this combination which has always enabled you to rationalise yourself into a confidence in the rightness of your decisions and into a surety that your particular life choices and your preferred circumstances are correct and justified. This energy and force are reinforced also by the controlling force of your physical body which gives you a third ray brain.

Second, your personality ray is focussed in your astral body. The rays—three, five and six—are your controlling factors. This gives you devotion and mental control and it should give you real balance but, unfortunately, it does not, because the mind aspect is unduly emphasised and you are afraid of devotion. Yet it is your devotion, my brother, which has brought you to us and not your mental ability. It is your devotion which has led you steadily all these years and produced your service in the world. To what have you been devoted? This is an important question for you to answer to your soul.

I ask myself anew: How can I convey to this disciple the nature of his problem? I will put it in this form. Your egoic energy, focussed in your mind, is at the service of your personality and of the work which you are endeavouring to do in the particular field wherein you are forcing yourself to remain. It should be the other way round and the personality—with all its unified powers—should be at the service of the soul. All the forces of your lower nature should be at the disposal of the higher Self, working through an illumined mind and sensitive brain. Ponder on this. The energy of the intelligence and two intelligent forces—the soul, the mind and the physical nature—serve your devoted personality. You should reverse this, my brother, and let the intelligent soul control your devoted personality. There lies your problem.

The need of every disciple is ever to develop a closer and more direct alignment between soul and personality and that is, therefore, your problem, even if it seems to you an elementary problem. What you need to do is to focus the energy of your soul in your sixth ray astral body instead of in your mind, so that intelligent love may be your outstanding characteristic. This shift will do certain things for you and in you:

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1. It will create a temporary upheaval in your life and, therefore, naturally affect your solar plexus, producing a period of real difficulty.

2. It will transfer the energy of the soul and the force of the mind into the realm of the emotions and of sensitive feeling response, thereby greatly increasing your usefulness but also increasing for you the "dire pain of life itself"; this is a pain with which all disciples must learn to live and from which all disciples must inevitably suffer.

3. It will stimulate your brain cells and swing into activity many hitherto dormant cells, thus making you capable of increased service of a different nature to that with which you are now occupied. It will lead you to enquire if your present field of service is, for you, a legitimate one or—if it is—what must you do to "change the nature of the seed which must therein be sown." You will know to what I refer without my further elaborating.

Such is your problem. How shall we change your egoic focus and, at the same time, fuse more closely your two major rays so that the personality is subordinated to the soul. To aid in this specific meditation must be followed....

NOTE: "This disciple is no longer working with the Tibetan Master, Who makes the following comment about him:

"He has reached his high water mark for this life. Further instruction is not necessary. He has enough upon which to work."

To L. D. O.

November 1937

MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND: