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SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - Part 11

The way out for R.S.U. is the cultivation of joy, as it brings release to others. Yours is by the right control of speech and the elimination of all reference to personality activities. This must be achieved, not by the processes of inhibition, but by a true lack of self-interest. If my reference to the buddhic-astral nature of your life direction is not clear to you, take the matter up with R.V.B. Your technical knowledge of these terms may not be adequate to true comprehension. You need to study in order to awaken your mental grasp, without losing at the same time your intuitional wisdom. R.S.U. needs to study less and to be more.

Power can flow through you, my brother. As a channel, you can be potent once that channel has been better cleared. You can act as a distributor of strength and power to your brothers once you have freed yourself from the centre of your stage and can move with greater freedom on soul levels....

Your work must continue to lie a great deal on buddhic levels. The calls to meditation which so constantly come to you from somewhere must still meet with prompt response from your personality. This is one thing which you have mastered, the ability as a soul to call the attention of the personality. This ability is your major asset and contribution where my group of disciples is concerned for it enables you, if you so choose, to [333] [333] send forth at will light and strength and power. Continue with this work of attention.

May the light of the Eternal shine upon your way, my brother and the power of your soul pour through you with increasing helpfulness to your chosen band of comrades. Such is my prayer for you as I gather you closer into my aura.

January 1937

MY BROTHER:

You have asked me a definite question and you have made one statement to which I would call your attention as it embodies a major truth which—grasped theoretically by you at this time—can be practically applied if you so choose.

You asked how one can definitely know my vibration. There are four vibrations to which you respond and which you should carefully study and learn to differentiate more accurately in the year of training which lies ahead:

1. That of your own soul at moments of contact. These are the moments of light and illumination and of released thought and for this contact and its expression in these forms you should increasingly work. They are free from personality ideas, ideals and desires (of no matter how high an order) and from all traces of personality love. But they should throw a flood of light upon the personality, revealing you to yourself. If this they do not do, then they are kept on too high a mental level and are impractical for they remain mystical and abstract, theoretical and divorced from consummated practice. They increase responsibility but remain relatively useless for they are futile upon the physical plane.

2. The vibration of your group of co-disciples. You sense this group of mine most potently and particularly at the time of the Full Moon. It produces collective heart expansion. This I think also you know and have at times experienced. It should deepen your love for your fellow disciples and should destroy all barriers between you and them. If it does not do this, then the whole activity is [334] kept on the level of theory and mentation and is not practically expressed. What I say to you here I say to all disciples.

3. You sense also the vibration of two in this group of disciples particularly; they are the most easily contacted by you and produce stimulation—the one of the head centre and the other of the heart centre. Forget not, stimulation is an impersonal force and is unconsciously applied in your case by them and it feeds your thought life more than anything else. This means that tuning in on these two vibrations accentuates all your thought life—the good and that which is not so good. The three of you create in fact a triangle within my group and this should increase the interplay of love. At the same time, it could also produce a tendency to drive apart when handled personally. Foster the love but tune not in when that sensed link of love is absent.

4. You sense at times also my own vibration. This can be the tuning in to the periphery of my aura, producing integration of your entire personality and also facilitating soul alignment; it can also be a closer contact, a tuning in on the energy of my heart centre. How can you know that you have done so? Only, my brother, by the after effects and not by any phenomenal vision, response or reaction. An increase of love and understanding, a developed impersonality and a keener response to need—these would be some of the true reactions.

Study these various vibrations by practising the habit of contacting them with deliberation and determination, tuning on one or other of these four at separate times, noting results and registering any response.

The statement which you make and to which I seek to call your attention is as follows: One must distinguish between essentials and non-essentials. This is a statement of deep occult fact and significance and holds the key to the spiritual life and to all the occult mysteries. It pleases me that you have isolated this truth and have attempted to formulate it with clarity. Now, my brother, use it as the keynote of your spiritual practice during the next few months, living by it and abiding by it. Apply [335] it, however, not to the use of your time or to your physical plane active life but to the use you make of emotion and of thought. Bring it as a touchstone to every problem and situation of an emotional nature and every glamorous, personality reaction and watch the light which will stream in from every side. Ask yourself, for instance: Is this line of thought or inner emotional reaction an essential or is it of no importance in the light of the larger issues and is, therefore, a non-essential? Is my agreement or disagreement with someone's ideas or point of view based on spiritual essentials or on personality non-essentials? Act then on the response which you call forth as you stand in the light of your own soul. Ask yourself also: Are these comments of mine, this discussion in which I may be engaged, concerned with spiritual essentials or not? Are my words emphasising the spiritual reality in my brother or do they bring to light that which is non-essential? Am I throwing the weight of my influence upon the side of essential facts or am I fostering the non-essential and, therefore, the unnecessary? One could make lengthy application of a practical nature to this occult law but I have indicated sufficiently the usefulness of your statement.

I am giving you no occult exercises at this time. You have evolved your own way of working and of preparation for meditation and it will suffice you for the present. The occult phrases which should constitute your subject of meditation during the coming months and which have in them the clue to increased release are:

"The will dynamic sweeps from the centre to the periphery and builds the little world of form—the world of I and my, of me and mine. This world a prison makes. It hides the beauty rare; it shrouds the sound divine; it veils the Word incarnate.

"The will dynamic sweeps from that which is without to that which lies within. It builds the wider world of Thou and Thine, of Ours and That. The doors stand open wide; a light shines forth; a Word can then be spoken and many prisoners go free.

"The will dynamic sweeps around the world upon the wings of love divine. It sweeps throughout the universal world; it acclaims with joy the All, the Whole, the One. [336] The Life then stands revealed. The universe stands free and with it man."

July 1937

You have an interesting and definite problem, brother of mine, which entails the organisation and the right relation of the different aspects of your personality forces and their eventual coordination with the energy of the soul.

Your mental body is on the second ray. This, as you will note, is not usual. It makes illumination the line of least resistance. It facilitates contact with the soul and provides your dominant problem. That problem is the demanding of love and of appreciation where your personality is concerned. Think this out. It means that you can always be depended upon to sacrifice everything in order that the desires, the will and the purpose of the soul—once they are made clear to you—may be truly worked out. Nothing will be permitted by you to arrest your spiritual achievement once the way appears open to you. But it means also, from the lower angle, that you will sacrifice much in order to be loved by people. This matters not at all in the case of the average person for in due time and inevitably a proper sense of proportion will emerge. But it does matter in the case of those who are on the Path of Discipleship and who face at some not so distant time preparation for initiation. Watch this with care and discover for yourself the situation. One clue to understanding would be that you study whether or not, in moments of personality emergency, you sacrifice your sense of truth or your friends.

Your emotional body is on the sixth Ray of Devotion and Idealism; hence your devotion to those you love, to truth and (unknown and unrealised by you) to me, your Tibetan brother and teacher. Hence also your devotion to the Hierarchy which I serve. Hence also the interplay between your sixth ray personality and your sixth ray astral body which provides both spiritual opportunity but also a definite problem.

Your physical body is of a dominant first ray type. This again is not usually so except in the case of disciples, who are liable to build vehicles of any type of force to meet the emergency, the need or the service of a particular life. This [337] first ray body enables you to handle spiritual energy upon the physical plane. It enables you also to act as a force transmitter and distributor. The forces, therefore, with which you have to deal are:

1. The soul ray—the first Ray of Will or Power.

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

3. The ray of the mind—the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.

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

5. The ray of the physical body—the first Ray of Power.

I have one personal word of commendation to give you at this time, my brother. Your sense of truth is growing fast. See that it continues so to do.

January 1938

MY BROTHER AS ALWAYS:

I would ask you to study the instructions which I gave you a year ago. By so doing, you will be able to gauge any measure of growth to which you may have attained (if you study with care and understanding). You will also be able to decide if you have gone forward as indicated. You have had a year of development on all planes and your task is now to balance, one against the other, the various aspects of your life so that (in the words of the occult phrases given to you a year ago and definitely chosen by me with an eye to your future progress), you can build that "wider world of Thou and Thine, of Ours and That." Forget not, that what you build can be either a temple of the Lord from which the Words of Power can issue forth and "many prisoners go free," or a prison house, hiding and not revealing, veiling and not manifesting that which is of beauty rare.

One of the problems with which all disciples are faced as they become dynamic and constructive on all planes (as they do and must) is to avoid becoming the prisoners of their own constructions or limited by that which they themselves have created. They must learn to live with vision in the world of causes and of motive, adhering strenuously to "original intention"; they must not permit themselves to be sidetracked [338] [338] by the activities which they have themselves set in motion, or by the details which emerge out of their creative activity, or by the lesser responsibilities and obligations which may appear. You know well to what I here refer and should increasingly respond to these ideas. Keep the vision clear, my brother, and live upon the mountain top. It is this message which I seek to send to you and to all in my group of disciples today. You are all living on the verge of new happenings, of increased opportunities, fresh complexities and of definite spiritual crises. Then, remember the words which I spoke to you last year. We grow by the presentation of moments of crisis. Face such times with detachment, with deep inner comprehension and consecration and with illumined understanding, and swerve not from your basic objective to serve the race of men, the Plan and Us. Such is the appeal I make to all my disciples.

I am not giving you a definite meditation till later. But I particularly beg you to concentrate attention each month at the time of the Full Moon. For one full week each month make your conscious, dynamic and intelligent approach and let nothing interfere with this. It will be the best method for your first ray nature and will enable you to preserve your spiritual integrity; it will also serve each month to awaken your consecration and your dynamic spiritual will so that your dedication to service, your consecration to the life of meditation and your pledged obedience to your soul may move forward "from strength to strength." You will thereby be enabled (in the rush of new undertakings) to preserve yourself ever at the inner point of peace and from that spiritual centre go forth to the day's task, serene and unafraid, and with consciousness of spiritual purpose, kept ever at its highest point of tension. Will you, however, take the following seed thoughts into your meditation?

March............. Spiritual Purpose.

April................ Consecration to the Plan.

May................ Tension and Intensity.

June................ Quiet Poise.

July................. Spiritual Carelessness.

August............. Loving Understanding.

September....... Self-forgetfulness.

October.......... Soul Purpose.

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January 1939

MY BROTHER:

May I start my instruction to you at this time by quoting to you some familiar words: "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." Have you ever noticed the occult significance of these words? Quietness refers to the necessary condition of the astral or emotional body, and confidence, which is the outward expression of an inward faith, describes that of the mind. In quoting to you these words I have given you the working rules which should govern your personality life during the next few months. Quietness leads to a right reflection in the quiet pool of the emotional life and this in the light of the soul. Confidence is the expression of the personality faith in the fact of the soul and of the Plan. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." These desired realities, when reflected in the emotional nature, evoke aspiration and develop faith.

The focus of your soul is in the brain and that is why (when you came into incarnation) you built a first ray physical body—which is an unusual thing to do. The energy of your personality ray is focussed in the astral body. Your problem is to swing the mind nature into greater activity without (at the same time) developing criticism—a thing from which you are at this time relatively free though you are not free from certain unrecognised jealousies. You are free because the lower concrete mind, even if of good calibre, is subordinated in your case to intuition and to feeling. Your task is to gather personality and soul energy into the mind and—losing nothing of your present intuitive ability and power to feel and love—to work from the place of mental power. If you can do this, then your intuition will take due form and the power which flows through you will transmute feeling into understanding.

Before, therefore, you meditate each day, I will ask you to practise the ability to withdraw into the mind. You usually get focussed too high in the region of buddhic realisation (which is the exercise of the intuitive faculty) or you are focussed too low, in the realm of astral perception. I do not here refer to astral vision or psychism but to responsiveness to feeling.

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You must learn to see the mind as a centre of pure light. You must rid your consciousness of any thought of the mind as intellect and must learn to see it as simply a powerful reflector of the light of the soul, transmitting soul wisdom into the world of men. When you have found this centre of light, which is the mind, there take your stand in the very centre of the sphere and from that point proceed with the rest of the work which you are doing with my group, after duly linking up soul and brain.

Your objective in alignment will then be the mind, linked with the soul and the brain. This is a little different to the usual presentation of soul-mind-brain. It is mind-soul-brain. Ponder on this.

November 1939

MY BROTHER:

The entire glamorous life today, presenting itself as a necessary pageant and one that must be accepted in its inevitability, involves your consciousness. By this I mean that there is little of the specific and the particular in the glamour which seeks control of you, as is usually the case with the man in the street. It is the whole, swirling miasma which well-nigh engulfs you because—as I told you some years ago—you are predominantly astral-buddhic in your consciousness. Your intuitional grasp of reality and of truth is far ahead of the average. Your sensitive response to glamour is equally so. It is for this reason that your soul has led you into places where (in the competitive life of mankind) your lower mind must perforce function and thus the gap between the two major factors in your life (the higher intuitive mind and the astral-emotional nature) can be bridged, thus letting in the illumining control of the lower mind, plus normal concrete thinking. This is by no means an easy process, but, for a disciple like yourself, it is one which you can face with gallant attitude.

My aim is to let you know the purpose of your present life activity. It is not the seeking of money in order to live rightly and correctly; it is not the full occupation of your time, nor is it place or power. These are not the true incentives. The real [341] aim of your soul is bridging work and the achievement of clear-sighted control over a powerful personality, thus leading you to face yourself as you are and to make the needed changes. When the personality can be appraised justly and its achievements, its faults and its capacities rightly gauged, and when it is then deliberately subordinated to the aims of the soul—then you will have made a very great step forward.

And, my brother, you are making it. Your values are truer than they were a few years ago. The small social amenities and the calculated choice of friends no longer entirely govern your attitudes, though ancient habits still persist. Twenty years ago you were governed by social considerations; today that is not the case. It has been a long and hard lesson for you to attain a better sense of proportion, a more correct judgment and a finer perception as to people and their values; this will actively aid you in the dissipation of glamour. You are making real progress in overcoming the glamour of the social world, of place and position.

You are beginning to think in terms of human beings, thus negating your background. Does this surprise you, my brother? The glamour of caste still holds many nations and their peoples, and this the present war will bring to an end and from it will emerge humanity—whole, and able to function in human ways, free from the major trends and tyrannies of the past caste system, churchianity and financial grading. Ponder on this, for it is a point which you have not seen with clarity, and right understanding of this will clear your way to a future of wonder. In the lives of the world disciples at this time, great world problems are being worked out. Their response to world conditions is more sensitive and quicker and in their subsequent clear thinking lies the hope of world regeneration. So think and, my brother, lose not time worrying over what may look like an implied criticism of you.

NOTE: Inability to take criticism or to walk with humility on the Way temporarily has glamoured this disciple and direct contact with the Tibetan's group has stopped; the decision was the disciple's and not the Tibetan's.

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To P. G. C.

January 1936

MY BROTHER:

As I begin my work with you, I seek first of all to make two things clear. I look for no blind obedience from you. Such is not the way of the true disciple, nor is it your way. For this you may be glad. But I do look for evidence of that spiritual experimentation which will be willing to give fair trial for an adequate time to those things which do not run counter to your developing intuition. You yourself are becoming increasingly conscious that your spiritual independence (which is one of your most precious assets) can become too much emphasised and prove in some ways a hindrance. Your position is clear and sound, but you fail somewhat to recognise the fact that your personality is not yet a pure channel; nor is your alignment and your inner adjustment to the soul yet perfected. There is a chance, is there not, my brother, that your constant reaction against receiving any outer help may at times militate against your progress. Your extreme cautiousness may lead (if over-accentuated) to a spirit of isolation and separativeness which can be profoundly disastrous to the emerging and true spiritual ideals.

There are always those whom you can aid and stimulate and whose consciousness you can assist to expand. This is your constant endeavour and realisation, for you ever serve. But, equally, there are those who can give to you—in their due place and time—that which you need in order to take what is for you the next step upon the Path. And this I can give to you, if you care, for a year or so, to enter into some experiments with me and submit to some plain statements of truth. In the process of this experimentation can you give faithful adherence to the imparted instruction? You can at any time drop out. You are not asked to give to me any personality devotion. You will not be asked to do aught for which I will not (at the same time) seek to explain the reason and objective. But whilst working in my group, will you not adhere to my instructions and refrain from criticism and from conjecture of too analytical a nature until I have had time to demonstrate to you the value of that which I am [343] seeking to do? Give me two years, my brother, and by that time you may value that which I and the group can give.

I sought to bring you into my group work for several reasons. My first reason was that your type of mind will be of value to the group and you can help me with your teaching capacity, for you are well grounded in the academic side of the divine art and know more than do your fellow group members, just as I.S.G-L. is more deeply versed in the science of psychology than are any of you. Your questions and your occasional papers will be of value to the group.

Secondly, if you will temporarily abandon your attitude of mental isolation (which is somewhat based on fear—a fear of losing time as you appropriate the mental errors of others), the group identification required will greatly broaden your understanding. Read what I have to say in the general instructions anent this group endeavour and seek to cooperate—for a while at least. The value of the group work may even outweigh in its results the teaching which I may give to you. In the New Age, which is upon us, all true work is group work, with the individual subordinated to the group good. This identification you have yet to learn. Members of the new groups have to learn to identify themselves with the subjective aspiration and goal of the group, but not with the organisation angle which is ever kept in the background. This will not be easy for you. Groups, just like individuals, have their three functioning aspects. That of the outer active organisation is only too familiar. It is the second aspect, of group inclusiveness which you have to learn and with which you must identify yourself.

Now, brother of old, let me give to you the meditation work which I wish you to do. For six months cease from the breathing exercise that you have been doing, which you call the abdominal breath, for it vitalises primarily the centres below the diaphragm and with you—curiously enough—it is the centre at the base of the spine which is vitalised.... I seek to awaken the creative imagination and release your sense of specialised force in certain areas.

That the light may indeed shine upon your way, and lead you to increased usefulness is the wish of your friend and co-worker, the Tibetan.

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June 1936

MY BROTHER:

You are a second ray soul and have a seventh ray personality.

This seventh ray personality enables you to work actively in many ways upon the physical plane, bringing together the subjective reality and the outer form. Your feeling that there is in you indication of a fifth ray activity is due to the fact that it was your personality ray in your last life and is, for you, the line of least resistance therefore.

First, my brother, I would like to thank you for the way in which you have taken hold of this work, and for your cooperation in attempting to fuse the group subjectively. You have worked well and hard, and though I know that you seek not commendation, it is of value sometimes to know that one's efforts are bearing fruit.

This group of mine is by no means an easy one with which to work. In the six members who are at present working together in it there are five second ray egos. This is interesting in that it indicates a predominant capacity in the group to heal and to teach, and these are, in the last analysis, your two major objectives. This should be grasped and understood. Healing need not necessarily be physical in its objective. The highest form of healing at this time possible is psychological. This, of course, produces physical results. When a healer can combine in himself both fields of activity and produce that psychological synthesis and a consequent physical healing, then much, very much, can be done.

There are also to be found three sixth ray lines of force. These produce that definite drive which tends towards ultimate success, but also a drift towards fanaticism. This must be guarded against; for disciples in training, fanaticism is not desirable. In this brief analysis of the ray forces present in this group, it is apparent that you should find points of contact. The problem of two of your fellow disciples, though not definitely similar, has many resemblances from the angle of the soul. May I add here, that the point of evolution of the disciples and their status upon the Path of Discipleship lies [345] entirely between them, their own souls and myself, and need not engage the attention of any other person. It is an entirely futile speculation on the part of personalities. I have only called your attention to these points of rapport, because of their value in group integration.

I am not, at this time, going to alter your meditation work. Rhythm through meditation takes time to establish and you have not worked at this for a sufficient length of time to get your results. The rhythm which I seek to see controlling is not yet adequate and it will not hurt you to continue these exercises. Endeavour to clarify and deepen your alignment between the personality and the soul.

January 1937

MY BROTHER:

You have worked hard the past six months and, though you need no cheering, your work has been amazingly selfless. I wanted you to know that this has been noted by me. You have worked steadily and subjectively at the production of group harmony and understanding; you have endeavoured consciously to bring your second ray force to bear upon the matter of group integration. In doing this, you have tuned in on a vital problem for the group. This group of disciples (affiliated with my Ashram) cannot begin its real service until its individual members function in an unbreakable unity. The problem is to aid and assist this process subjectively and with true impersonality. So many disciples are apt to bring their concrete mind to bear upon these relations, and often end by disturbing its rhythm. All that is needed is love, understanding, and again love, followed by silence. This you have attempted successfully. Continue so to do and preserve ever a watchful spirit so that your high standard can be maintained.

There is much to be done during the coming year and it must all be approached from the angle of soul contact, followed by efficiency on the physical plane. There is a point I ask you to work at during these next months, for it constitutes for you the next step upon the Path of Discipleship.

Seek to make such a dynamic contact with your soul each [346] morning (prior to starting the day's work) that the power and wisdom then contacted, and the purity of the open channel, will carry you through the day's activities without a continual recollectedness of the need to preserve contact. This is one of the first steps in the newer conception of being. So many people labour at the work of being a disciple. At a certain stage, this is right, proper and most necessary, but it should be succeeded by a conscious, dynamic, rhythmic contact every twenty-four hours. Then the momentum set up should suffice to carry you through your full life of service. Once a day you must seek recharging and, if the work is adequately done, it should suffice.

Your other daily points of contact are not intended to aid you personally. Nor are they for your own spiritual refreshment. They are the moments when you tune in on the larger life of the Hierarchy, and of the New Group of World Servers. This I want you to remember. How then shall you make this approach for dynamic stimulation? This is your immediate problem and, in order to help you, I suggest the meditation outlined below.

1. Alignment. Achieved consciously and as rapidly as possible.

2. Then, in your own words, holding the mind steady in the light, and focussing yourself as high in the head as possible, offer yourself to the soul for recharging.

3. Follow this by three minutes (for this is quite a long time, my brother) of complete silence, preserving, if you can, an unmoved consciousness. The charging with spiritual light and force can then take place. How is this done? It is done by the soul, your true self, gathering you, its personality, into itself—a process of identification for which you must strive. This is what the mystics of the Catholic Church call the "true quiet of union."

4. To this should succeed a moment wherein you seek to realise that that which the soul has done is a fact. This involves the renewed activity of the mental processes.

5. Then, by the use of the creative imagination, carry this electrification (if I might use such a word), this stimulation and this illumination down to the emotional body, [347] purifying it and endeavouring to dispel its glamours. Let it sweep through the astral body.

6. Then in the physical brain consciousness, regard yourself as the conscious recipient of the strength and the wisdom which you need in service.

Go forth then to your life and service and expect and look for results.

October 1937

Your enquiring mind, my brother, is a real group asset, but when couched in terms of bewilderment, or critical intellectual questioning, it can let in destructive force. Use the knowledge which you have to emphasise the facts of which you are sure. Take your stand upon the basic certainties, and remember, that in the synthesis of the apparently contradictory complexities, there will come eventually enlightenment. Therefore, my brother, can I do anything else except tell you to wait with patience? In occult training, the old adage remains profoundly true that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The Path leading to omniscience is one of pitfalls and of difficulties. Has it ever struck you what complexities the Great Ones face as They deal with a constantly changing humanity? Principles remain eternally the same. But techniques and methods of presentation alter with each cycle, because the receiving equipment of man steadily alters and improves. This improvement does not necessarily mean an easier type of pupil; it often means the reverse. The Teacher has not only to impart the old truth in a new way, but has often to offset the established habits of thought and the impatience of a too eager mind.

Ponder on the themes below suggested.

1st month—The use of the hands in healing.

2nd month—The cultivation of patience in diagnosis.

3rd month—The factor of time in healing.

4th month—The "occult abstraction" of the personality in healing.

5th month—The recognition of karma in healing.

6th month—The interplay of love in healing.

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I would suggest that after each month's pondering, you summarise your conclusions in six statements—brief and concise.

March 1938

BROTHER OF OLD:

I would ask you to cast your eye, the eye of the inner spiritual insight, back over the past eight years, and thus awaken the recognition that during that time three things have happened to you:

1. Your orientation towards reality has been stabilised; you are definitely faced towards your goal, and nothing is able to deter you. Your progress may be slowed by circumstance and human frailty, but nothing can arrest your progress.

2. Your personality dependencies (upon yourself and upon others) are basically weakened and you have learnt a "divine distrust" of the reactions of the little self and its attitudes. You were so sure of your own point of view eight years ago, particularly in your own department of life and training.

3. The significance of patient waiting, both in relation to people who are close to you, your clients, your co-disciples and me, is becoming strongly developed in you and it is one of the first lessons which a disciple has to master.

The implications of these three developments and their effect upon your daily life in your office, home, environment and group is now quite definite, and I would remind you of this. You will know within yourself the reason that I have brought these steps of progress to your attention. It is of real value to a disciple at times to summarise achievement and to accept it.

A new cycle always eventuates from such a moment of recognition and of conclusion, and into such a cycle you are now moving. Be therefore prepared both for deepened vision and for a fresh cycle of testing. You might ask me, my brother, of what such a preparation should consist. For you, it should be a steady "standing in spiritual being" which in your case (because [349] of ray affiliations) means to stand in the radiance of love—a love which wavers not and which permits no personality reactions to dim its lustre. I refer here to soul love and patience and not to any emotional expression of a well-developed astral body such as you undoubtedly have. Such an astral body, duly disciplined becomes a channel for the soul, and is a group asset and of major usefulness.

Earlier, I gave you some seed thoughts to be the germ of your meditation. This I did with a long purpose in my mind. Meditation is so oft regarded as the means for establishing soul contact. People oft forget, however, that this contact is brought about very frequently by an inner reflective attitude of mind, by a life given to service and selflessness, and by a determination to discipline the lower nature so that it may become a true channel for the soul. When these three methods of development are fully expressed and become a life tendency or permanent habits, then meditation can be shifted into another category of usefulness and serve as a technique for the development of the intuition and for the solution of group problems. To this use of meditation I seek to direct your attention, and it was towards these ends I was working when I chose the seed thoughts given to you earlier this year. I would ask you now to take the following six questions, based upon these seed thoughts, into your meditative reflection and answer them, one each month, during the coming half year period.

1. Why are the hands the distributive centres for healing and what do they symbolise?

2. What three major points should be considered in all true diagnosis?

3. Which of the bodies does the factor of time primarily affect and why?

4. "Occult abstraction" takes place in two directions in connection with a patient. What are these two directions? And what is abstracted?

5. Do you believe that a man's karma must inevitably lead always towards physical healing in this particular incarnation?

6. What aspect of love is used by the healer when dealing with a patient?

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You will find these questions of engrossing interest and well worth your attention as a preparatory task for the future work in healing in which you must prepare to take a prominent part. This group work I trust we can begin soon if the group continues with its task of integration, and learns the nature of that quiet spirit which is free from criticism, undue questioning and goes forth to others in love.

I will now indicate to you the nature of the five rays which condition you at this time. Of two of them, you already have some knowledge—your second ray soul and your seventh ray personality. In many ways you know more about the soul ray which conditions you than you do about your seventh personality ray. Knowledge of this latter ray must come to you through the art of healing, and your soul has rightly led your personality into its right line of activity.

Your mental body is on the fifth ray. This is definitely what I might call a "left over" from the fifth ray personality in which you functioned in your previous incarnation. This fifth ray mind gives you the enquiring, questioning nature which is one of your outstanding characteristics—a great asset when rightly used; a major problem and real deterrent to the inflow of soul light when over-emphasised. Eight years ago it was thus over-emphasised.

Your astral body is on the sixth ray and this is one of the factors which links you so closely to several of your fellow disciples. Both your major rays, as you will have noted are the same as R.S.W. You can see how potent a part you can play in this life if the force or influence which flows through you, via your emotional nature, is rightly directed by your soul. Being on the same line of energy as the soul—2, 4, 6—a line of least resistance for soul force is found.

Your physical body is upon the seventh ray. This should give you facile expression of your personality purpose upon the physical plane. Therefore, in dealing with yourself, you have the following ray forces to consider:

1. The egoic ray—the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.

2. The personality ray—the seventh Ray of Order or Magic.

3. The ray of the mental body—the fifth Ray of Concrete Science.

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

5. The ray of the physical body—the seventh Ray of Order or Magic.

It is of value to students to study what rays are not represented in the personality equipment. I commend this to your attention and also the implications based upon the fact that the three rays of your three bodies correspond sequentially to the three planes in the three worlds of your personality endeavour.

November 1938

BROTHER OF MINE:

I would start my instructions to you with stating my thanks for the steadiness whereby you have evoked the greatly needed group integration. You have served the group well, e'en if you do not realise it yourself. But I have seen and known. It is not oft that I pause in my strenuous life to tell a disciple that he has done well. I pause here today, however, to tell you so with deliberation.

The group should start its healing service in the late fall. By that time, all will have assimilated and grasped the essentials of the group work. You will be even more receptive to my suggestions than you have been, for you have worked hard at the task of spiritual acquiescent compliance. It was for you a hard task for you are an analytical personality. You can now receive the teaching with a sensitive compliance and a spiritual integrity which seven years ago would have been utterly impossible to you. See that you lose not these qualities.

One great problem I would commend to you, my brother, and that can be stated to you in the form of the following question: Group meetings often prove undesirable for disciples in the early stages of their work together. They serve only to foster personality reactions. How and in what way can the group meet, as a unit, for your future work in healing? This question will necessitate careful consideration on your part and I would ask you to ponder upon the following possibilities:

1. That the group could meet at certain stated hours on [352] certain stated days, sitting alone wherever they may be and thus do the required work.

2. That the group could do the work each morning at their morning meditation, each in his own place, knowing that upon the inner planes, the time equation counts not.

3. That the group could meet together (as many as possibly can) in person for the work of healing but should refuse to impair their usefulness by any personality conversation or exchange of views.

In my last instructions to you, I advised you strongly to consider the nature, qualities and attributes of the rays which were lacking in your equipment. Did you duly do so? They are, as you well know, the first, the third and the fourth or the rays of power, active intelligence and of that skill in action which produces conflict, leading to harmony. You have a sound grasp of the rays which constitute your equipment for this life but you need to understand wherein you lack certain attributes necessary to achievement. You possess four types of ray energy, which work quite fully through you. It is not hard for you to show love, though you handicap yourself considerably through the over-emphasis of the wisdom aspect of love. This leads to certain forms of hardness in your relations with those near and dear to you. Does this surprise you, my brother?

The seventh ray in your personality and physical body gives you the desire to use your hands and it determines your life work, because the hands are the agents of the magician and you are most definitely upon the Path of the White Magician. Your sixth ray astral body has given you your idealism, and the one-pointedness of your fifth ray mind has determined the nature of your mental approach to problems and to people; but you lack certain qualities which would supplement your life expression and which would round out your nature. You need more skill in action, a more firmly focussed will to understand; thus you will bring more of your brain cells into activity through the exercise of the third ray qualities. Ponder on this, but become not over-serious about it.

Continue with the group meditation along with the other group members and note carefully the few changes I have made. [353] Add to it the following brief meditation. It is planned in connection with your fifth ray mental nature, and I would ask you to do it with care.... Go in peace, my brother.

May 1939

BROTHER OF OLD:

One of the things which will, in two or three years time, emerge as part of your contribution in service will be a deep knowledge on the part of esotericists and a renewed interest in orthodox circles of the ray-gland-centre teaching. I would ask you to let this knowledge percolate slowly (if I may use such a term) into your consciousness and there—without any sense of strain or pressure—it will be gradually assimilated. It will then become an integral part of your scientific knowledge, of your mental equipment, and of your technique in service, so that it will become instinctually available. Forget not, that the hardly won intellectual perceptions have to become instinctual creative factors by the time a man is permitted to take initiation. The esoteric facts learned and the mental awareness achieved, will have to fall eventually below the threshold of consciousness, of thought and of awareness; they must constitute an integral part of the whole man, just as the animal instinctual nature or the reaction of the mind to the array of facts, presented by the use of the five senses, lies below the threshold of the animal consciousness, but is protectively available.

The true healer (and you can most certainly be one) should be so centralised in the higher awareness and subtly perceptive of the needs and the condition of the person to be healed, that his reactions to the situation and to the needed help, will be automatic, intuitive and, consequently, reliable. The true healer also correlates and uses all the various branches of the healing art—exoteric and esoteric, orthodox and experimental. He is not confined to one mode of service or to one scheme of presented healing. Again, I would ask you to ponder upon this.

I would ask you, also, to make a careful study of the use of the hands in healing. I have given various hints in my different [354] books and there is much anent this subject in the doctrine of the Church as to the "laying on of hands" and also in the oriental teachings anent the mudras, or the use of hands in ritualistic service. Find out all that you can about the hands. Later, I will indicate the future use of this science of the hands and give further instruction on the purpose of the centres in the hands in relation to the healing art. In the meantime, gather all the information upon the matter that you can and put it in such form that it may be available for use in the group.

I give you no other special work to do nor special meditation. Your time is fully and constructively occupied, my brother.

January 1940

MY BROTHER:

At the centre of your astral life lies a hindering glamour and, as in the case of your group brother ... I find it difficult to give this glamour a name. It is the reverse of his but then your two natures are widely different. Perhaps I can explain. You are working on the physical plane with distressed bodies and minds. You are also working on soul levels with thoughts and with concepts, and also with the assimilation of that inner and occult knowledge which has been your chosen way this life. Your active and enquiring mind, therefore, moves in the direction of the rendering of service and the acquiring of knowledge. You can touch heights in your inner life. Your service, steadfastly rendered, brings you down into the depths of human living. Yet the glamour of detachment, leading to personal cleavages in your inner life, hinders the full expression of the soul and the demonstration of a fusion which is much needed. For you, the word which would bring light is identification, as it is for.... By means of that identification the soul becomes at-one with all that breathes. That which hinders ... is different to that which hinders you. Your mind is more active than his, and you are not so held by social considerations as he is. His intuition is more alive than yours and far more sensitive. You both need, however, a closer identification with humanity and release from a glamorous pre-occupation with [355] what goes on in the higher levels of consciousness and a closer interest in the reactions upon the planes of personality expression.