Navigate the Chapters of this Book

II. The Seven Laws of Soul or Group Life - Part 4

The word "repulse" has an unfortunate connotation in many minds, and this revulsion against the word itself indicates man's innately spiritual bias.  Repulsion, the desire to repudiate, and repulsive attitudes, words and deeds evoke in our minds all that is unpleasant to contemplate.  Yet, spiritually considered and scientifically viewed, the word "repulse" indicates simply "an attitude towards that which is not desirable."  This, in its turn (as we seek to determine that which is desirable) calls into activity the virtues of discrimination, dispassion and discipline in the disciple's life, as well as the power to decentralise.  These words indicate the urge to devaluate the unreal and the undesirable, to discipline the lower nature till those choices are readily and easily made which lead to the discarding of that which imprisons or impedes the soul.  The major concepts are the definitely and carefully chosen way or procedure which will free the soul from the world of forms and identify it, first of all, with itself (thus freeing it from the world illusion), and then with the world of souls, which is the consciousness of the Oversoul.

There is no need to enlarge here upon the technique whereby this choice is to be made.  The way of discrimination, the method of dispassion and the discipline of the life have been made plain and clear by the teachings of the past two thousand years, and through the many books written to emphasise the teaching of the Christ and of the Buddha.  Through a right understanding of these, right choice can be made, and that which should not be cherished or desired can [162] be "repulsed".  Many an earnest student (such as those who will read this Treatise) has found it of advantage to write down for himself his own personal understanding of the four words:—

1. Discrimination,

2. Dispassion,

3. Discipline,

4. Decentralisation.

One page given to each definition should suffice, if it embodies truly one's highest thought.  Students will realise that as they practice these four virtues, the prime characteristics of a disciple, they are thereby automatically calling into play the Law of Repulse, which, upon the Path of Initiation, brings revelation and realisation.  The expression of this law upon the Path of Initiation is too advanced for those who are not yet versed in the basic discriminations, and who are still far from being dispassionate.  Is there need therefore to enlarge upon this law as it works out in the life of the initiate?  I think not.  The disciple seeks to achieve, without passion, pain or suffering, the distinction which lies between:

1. Right and wrong,

2. Good and evil,

3. Light and dark, spiritually understood,

4. Prison and liberty,

5. Love and hate,

6. Introversion and extraversion.  We do well to ponder on this duality

7. Truth and falsehood,

8. Mystical and occult knowledge,

9 The self and the not-self,

10. Soul and body.

[163]

Many, many other dualities can thus be listed.  Having then discovered the fact of these pairs of opposites, the task of the disciple is to discover that which is neither of them.  It is this central, intermediate way that is revealed to the initiate, through the working of the Law of Repulse which occultly enables him to "push with either hand, to a distance afar from his way, that which intrudes and veils the central way of light.  For neither on the right nor on the left lies safety for the man who seeks that lighted way."  Does this sentence really mean aught to most of us?  Let us seek to express to ourselves in words the qualifications and name of that third or central way which is, for instance, neither light nor dark, and neither love nor hate.  We cannot with clarity see what it could be, nor will we until the increased stimulation which is released in us upon the Way of Initiation does its appointed work.  Some idea of what it means may appear, however dimly, to our vision as we deal with our third division.

c. THE LAW OF REPULSE AND THE PILGRIM ON THE WAY OF LIFE

We shall base our thoughts upon the words earlier quoted:

"The Law of Repulse drives in seven directions, and forces all it thus contacts back to the bosom of the seven spiritual Fathers."

We have come definitely to a consideration of the Way of Repulsion, governed by this law, which is the way or technique for each ray type.  Though the same law can be seen working in all seven cases and in all seven directions, yet the results will differ, because the quality and the phenomenal appearance upon which the law of the divine will makes its impact and consequent impression, differ so widely.  The complexity of the problem is therefore great.  These seven [164] soul laws lie behind all the various presentations of truth as they have been given out by the world Teachers down the ages.  It requires much spiritual insight, however, to enable the average disciple to see the correspondence or the trend of ideas which link, for instance:

1. The beatitudes (enunciated by the Christ) and these seven laws.

2. The stages of the Noble Eightfold Path and these soul potencies.

3. The eight Means to Yoga or union of the soul, and this septenate of influences.

4. The Ten Commandments of the Semitic religion, and these seven spiritual laws.

Students would find it of interest to test their understanding of the esoteric relationships existing between these groups of teaching and see if they can, for themselves, trace the basic meanings.  Let us, by way of illustration, trace or indicate the relation between the seven laws and the eight means to Yoga, because this will give us an illustration of the difference existing between the means to Yoga as understood by the average yogi or esotericist, and as they can be understood by the trained disciple or initiate.

 

1.

 

 

The five Commandments...............

Second ray force..........

The Law of Magnetic Impulse.

The universal duty.

 

Inclusion.  Attraction.

2.

 

 

The Rules......................................

Fourth ray force..............

The Law of Sacrifice.

 For self training.

 

 "I die daily."

3.

 

 

Posture..........................................

Sixth ray force................

The Law of Service. 

 A poised attitude to the world.

 

 Right relations and right ideals.

4.

 

 

Pranayama....................................

The law of rhythmic living.

Seventh ray force...........

The Law of Group Progress. 

The Law of spiritual development.

5.

 

 

Abstraction.....................................

First ray force.................

The Law of Repulse.

Pratyahara. Withdrawal from desire.

 

 The repudiation of desire.

6

.

 

Attention.........................................

Third ray force................

The Law of Expansive Response.

 Correct orientation.

 

 

7.

 

 

Meditation......................................
Lower Right use of the mind.

Fifth ray force................ 

The Law of the  Four. 
"The soul is in deep meditation."

8.

 

 

  Result...........................................

Contemplation...............

Complete spiritual detachment.

[165]

A close study of these relationships will be found suggestive to the disciple and illuminating to the initiate.  Let us not, however, confuse illumination with a new or bright idea!  It is something far different to that.  The difference is that between the light of a star, and the light of a steadily waxing sun.  One reveals the fact of night.  The other reveals the world of daylight and of conscious Being.

d. THE SEVEN DIRECTIONS OF THE LAW OF REPULSE

It must be remembered that the Law of Repulse, which is the Law of the destroying Angels, works in seven directions; that it produces effects upon seven different types of beings and of men, and that by reason of its activity, it draws the prodigal son back to the Father's home.  It causes him to "arise and go."  But we must remember that, when Christ was relating this story, He made it abundantly clear that there was no impulse to return until the pilgrim in the far country had come to himself or to his senses, as a result of [166] satisfied desire, through riotous living.  This was followed by consequent satiety and loss of contentment, and then by a period of intense suffering, which broke his will to wander or to desire.  A study of this story will be found revealing.  In no Scripture is the sequence of events (as they deal with the pilgrim's existence and life in a far country and his return) so concisely or so beautifully treated.  Seek out your Bibles, and study this tale, and read for yourselves the pilgrim's way.

The effect of this Law of Repulse, as it works out in the world of discipleship and destroys that which hinders, sends the pilgrim hurrying back consciously along one of the seven rays that lead to the centre.  This cannot be handled in detail here.  Our present task is that of treading the Path of Probation or of Discipleship and of learning discipline, dispassion, and the other two necessities on the Way,—discrimination and decentralisation.  It is possible, nevertheless, to indicate the goal and point out the potency of the forces to which we shall be increasingly subjected as we pass—as some of us can so pass—on to the Path of Accepted Discipleship.  This we will do in the form of seven stanzas which will give a hint (if one is an aspirant) of the technique to which one will be exposed; if one has passed further on the Way, they will give one a command which, as a disciple with spiritual insight one will obey, because one is awakened; if one is an initiate, they will evoke the comment:  "This I know."

The Direction of Ray I.

"The garden stands revealed.  In ordered beauty live its flowers and trees.  The murmur of the bees and insects on their winged flight is heard on every side.  The air is rich with perfume.  The colours riot to the blue of heaven....

The wind of God, His breath divine, sweeps through the garden....Low lie the flowers.  Bending, the trees are [167] devastated by the wind.  Destruction of all beauty is followed by the rain.  The sky is black.  Ruin is seen.  Then death....

Later, another garden!  but the time seems far away.  Call for a gardener.  The gardener, the soul, responds.  Call for the rain, the wind, the scorching sun.  Call for the gardener.  Then let the work go on.  Ever destruction goes before the rule of beauty.  Ruin precedes the real.  The garden and the gardener must awake!  The work proceeds."

The Direction of Ray II.

"The Scholar knows the truth.  All is revealed to him.  Surrounded by his books, and sheltered in the world of thought, he burrows like a mole, and finds his way into the darkness; he arrives at knowledge of the world of natural things.  His eye is closed.  His eyes are opened wide.  He dwells within his world in deep content.

Detail on detail enter into the content of his world of thought.  He stores the nuggets of the knowledge of the world, as a squirrel stores its nuts.  The storehouse now is adequately full....Sudden a spade descends, for the thinker tends the garden of his thought, and thus destroys the passages of mind.  Ruin arrives, destroying fast the storehouse of the mind, the safe security, the darkness and the warmth of a satisfied enquiry.  All is removed.  The light of summer enters in and the darkened crannies of the mind see light....Naught is left but light, and that cannot be used.  The eyes are blinded and the one eye seeth not as yet....

Slowly the eye of wisdom must be opened.  Slowly the love of that which is the true, the beautiful and good must enter the dark passages of worldly thought.  Slowly the torch of light, the fire of right must burn the garnered treasures of the past, yet show their basic usefulness....

The seven ways of light must wean away the attention of the Scholar from all that has been found and stored and used.  This he repulses and finds his way into that Hall of Wisdom which is built upon a hill, and not deep under ground.  Only the opened eye can find this way."

The Direction of Ray III.

"Surrounded by a multitude of threads, buried in folds and folds of woven goods, the Weaver sits.  No Light can enter [168] where he sits.  By the light of a tiny candle, carried upon the summit of his head, he dimly sees.  He gathers handful after handful of the threads and seeks to weave the carpet of his thoughts and dreams, his desires and his aims.  His feet move steadily; his hands work swiftly; his voice, without cessation, chants the words:  'I weave the pattern which I seek and like.  The warp and woof is planned by my desire.  I gather here a thread and here a colour.  I gather there another.  I blend the colours and I mix and blend the threads.  As yet I cannot see the pattern, but it will surely measure up to my desire.'

Loud voices, and a movement from outside the darkened chamber where the Weaver sits; they grow in volume and in power.  A window breaks and, though the Weaver cries aloud, blinded by the sudden light, the sun shines in upon his woven carpet.  Its ugliness is thus revealed....

A voice proclaims:  'Look from out thy window, Weaver, and see the pattern in the skies, the model of the plan, the colour and the beauty of the whole.  Destroy the carpet which you have for ages wrought.  It does not meet your need....Then weave again, Weaver.  Weave in the light of day.  Weave, as you see the plan.' "

The Direction of Ray IV.

" 'I take and mix and blend.  I bring together that which I desire.  I harmonise the whole.'

Thus spoke the Mixer, as he stood within his darkened chamber.  'I realise the unseen beauty of the world.  Colour I know and sound I know.  I hear the music of the spheres, and note on note and chord on chord, they speak their thought to me.  The voices which I hear intrigue and draw me, and with the sources of these sounds I seek to work.  I seek to paint and blend the pigments needed.  I must create the music which will draw to me those who like the pictures which I make, the colours which I blend, the music which I can evoke.  Me, they will therefore like, and me, they will adore....'

But crashing came a note of music, a chord of sound which drove the Mixer of sweet sounds to quiet.  His sounds died out within the Sound and only the great chord of God was heard.

[169]

A flood of light poured in.  His colours faded out.  Around him naught but darkness could be seen, yet in the distance loomed the light of God.  He stood between his nether darkness and the blinding light.  His world in ruins lay around.  His friends were gone.  Instead of harmony, there was dissonance.  Instead of beauty, there was found the darkness of the grave....

The voice then chanted forth these words:  'Create again, my child, and build and paint and blend the tones of beauty, but this time for the world and not thyself.'  The Mixer started then his work anew and worked again."

The Direction of Ray V.

"Deep in a pyramid, on all sides built around by stone, in the deep dark of that stupendous place, a mind and brain (embodied in a man) were working.  Outside the pyramid, the world of God established itself.  The sky was blue; the winds blew free; the trees and flowers opened themselves unto the sun.  But in the pyramid, down in its dim laboratory, a Worker stood, toiling at work.  His test tubes and his frail appliances he used with skill.  In rows and rows, the retorts for fusing, and for blending, for crystallising and for that which sought division, stood with their flaming fires.  The heat was great.  The toil severe....

Dim passages, in steady progress, led upward to the summit.  There a wide window stood, open unto the blue of heaven, and carrying one clear ray down to the worker in the depths....He worked and toiled.  He struggled onwards toward his dream, the vision of an ultimate discovery.  He sometimes found the thing he sought, and sometimes failed; but never found that which could give to him the key to all the rest....In deep despair, he cried aloud unto the God he had forgot:  'Give me the key.  I alone can do no more good.  Give me the key.'  Then silence reigned....

Through the opening on the summit of the pyramid, dropped from the blue of heaven, a key came down.  It landed at the feet of the discouraged worker.  The key was of pure gold; the shaft of light; upon the key a label, and writ in blue, these words:  'Destroy that which thou has built and build anew.  But only build when thou has climbed the upward way, traversed the gallery of tribulation and entered [170] into light within the chamber of the king.  Build from the heights, and thus shew forth the value of the depths.'

The Worker then destroyed the objects of his previous toil, sparing three treasures which he knew were good, and upon which the light could shine.  He struggled towards the chamber of the king.  And still he struggles."

The Direction of Ray VI.

"'I love and live and love again,' the frenzied Follower cried aloud, blinded by his desire for the teacher and the truth, but seeing naught but that which lay before his eyes.  He wore on either side the blinding aids of every fanatic divine adventure.  Only the long and narrow tunnel was his home and place of high endeavor.  He had no vision except of that which was the space before his eyes.  He had no scope for sight,—no height, no depth, no wide extension.  He had but room to go one way.  He went that way alone, or dragging those who asked the way of him.  He saw a vision, shifting as he moved, and taking varying form; each vision was to him the symbol of his highest dreams, the height of his desire.

He rushed along the tunnel, seeking that which lay ahead.  He saw not much and only one thing at a time,—a person or a truth, a bible or his picture of his God, an appetite, a dream, but only one!  Sometimes he gathered in his arms the vision that he saw, and found it naught.  Sometimes, he reached the person whom he loved and found, instead of visioned beauty, a person like himself.  And thus he tried.  He wearied of his search; he whipped himself to effort new.

The opening dimmed its light.  A shutter seemed to close.  The vision he had seen no longer shone.  The Follower stumbled in the dark.  Life ended and the world of thought was lost...Pendent he seemed.  He hung with naught below, before, behind, above.  To him, naught was.

From deep within the temple of his heart, he heard a Word.  It spoke with clarity and power:  'Look, deep within, around on every hand.  The light is everywhere, within the heart, in Me, in all that breathes, in all that is.  Destroy thy tunnel, which thou has for ages long constructed.  Stand free, in custody of all the world.'  The Follower answered:  'How shall I break my tunnel down?  How can I find a way?'  No answer came....

[171]

Another pilgrim in the dark came up, and groping, found the Follower.  'Lead me and others to the Light,' he cried.  The Follower found no words, no indicated Leader, no formulas of truth, no forms or ceremonies.  He found himself a leader, and drew others to the light,—the light that shone on every hand.  He worked and struggled forward.  His hand held others, and for their sake, he hid his shame, his fear, his hopelessness and his despair.  He uttered words of surety and faith in life, and light and God, in love and understanding....

His tunnel disappeared.  He noticed not its loss.  Upon the playground of the world he stood with many fellow-players, wide to the light of day.  In the far distance stood a mountain blue, and from its summit issued forth a voice which said:  'Come forward to the mountain top and on its summit learn the invocation of a Saviour.'  To this great task the Follower, now a leader, bent his energies.  He still pursues this way...."

The Direction of Ray VII.

"Under an arch between two rooms, the seventh Magician stood.  One room was full of light and life and power, of stillness which was purpose and a beauty which was space.  The other room was full of movement, a sound of great activity, a chaos without form, of work which had no true objective.  The eyes of the Magician were fixed on chaos.  He liked it not.  His back was towards the room of vital stillness.  He knew it not.  The arch was tottering overhead....

He murmured in despair:  'For ages I have stood and sought to solve the problem of this room; to rearrange the chaos so that beauty might shine forth, and the goal of my desire.  I sought to weave these colours into a dream of beauty, and to harmonise the many sounds.  Achievement lacks.  Naught but my failure can be seen.  And yet I know there is a difference between that which I can see before my eyes and that which I begin to sense behind my back.  What shall I do?'

Above the head of the Magician, and just behind his back, and yet within the room of ordered beauty, a magnet vast began to oscillate....It caused the revolution of the man, within the arch, which tottered to a future fall.  The magnet turned him round until he faced the scene and room, unseen before....

[172]

Then through the centre of his heart the magnet poured its force attractive.  The magnet poured its force repulsive.  It reduced the chaos until its forms no longer could be seen.  Some aspects of a beauty, unrevealed before, emerged.  And from the room a light shone forth and, by its powers and life, forced the Magician to move forward into light, and leave the arch of peril."

Such are some thoughts, translated from an ancient metrical arrangement, which may throw some light upon the duality of personality and the work to be done by the beings found upon the septenate of rays.  Know we where we stand?  Do we realise what we have to do?  As we strive to enter into light, let us count no price too great to pay for that revelation.

We have studied an interesting sequence of Laws.  In Law One, we find that three major ideas emerge:

First of all, that the Eternal Pilgrim, of his own free will and accord, chose "occultly" to die and took a body or series of bodies in order to raise or elevate the lives of the form nature which he embodied.  In the process of so doing, he himself "died", in the sense that, for a free soul, death and the taking of a form and the consequent immersion of the life in the form, are synonymous terms.

Secondly, that in so doing, the soul is recapitulating on a small scale what the solar Logos and the planetary Logos have likewise done, and are doing.  These great Lives come under the rule of the laws of the soul during the period of manifestations, even though they are not governed or controlled by the laws of the natural world, as we call it.  Their consciousness remains unidentified with the world of phenomena, though ours is identified with it until such time that we come under the rule of the higher laws.  By the occult "death" of these great Lives, all lesser lives can live and are proffered opportunity.

[173]

Thirdly, that through death, a great at-one-ing process is carried forward.  In the "fall of a leaf" and its consequent identification with the soil on which it falls, we have a tiny illustration of this great and eternal process of at-one-ing, through becoming and dying as a result of becoming.

In Law Two, the sacrificing unit—again freely and by choice—comes under the influence of the method whereby this death is brought about.  By the impact of the pairs of opposites and through his being "pendent" 'twixt the two, he knows the outer darkness as Christ knew it finally at the Crucifixion, where He hung, symbolically pendent 'twixt heaven and earth, and through the potency of His own inner vibration and magnetism, has drawn and will draw all men to Himself.  This is the first great idea emerging.  The second emerging idea concerns the balancing of the forces which have been mastered.  The symbol of the scales is here appropriate, and, of this truth, the three Crosses on Mount Golgotha are also symbols.  Libra governs this law, and certain forces from that constellation can be sensed when the soul consciousness comes under the influence of the law.  These forces are quiescent where the personality is concerned; their effect does not register, even though necessarily present.

In Law Three, the sacrificing God and the God of the dualities come under certain influences which produce more easily recognised effects.  By his death and by his victory over the pairs of opposites, the disciple becomes so magnetic and vibrant, that he serves the race by becoming what he knows he is.  Immersed, physically, from the angle of the personality, in the waters of earthly existence, yet at the same time he is aware—in consciousness—of other conditions, of his essential purpose in dying for other lives, and aware also of the method which he must employ in achieving and attaining the releasing equilibrium.  When these ideas are dominant in the mind, [174] he can serve his fellow men.  These laws have this effect only as they emerge in the consciousness of the man who is building the antaskarana and who is proceeding with the Science of Union.

It is when the fourth Law of Repulse is beginning to produce its effects that the disciple becomes aware of the Angel with the Flaming Sword, Who stands before the portal of initiation.  By this portent, he knows that he can now enter; but, this time, not as a poor blind candidate, but as an initiate in the mysteries of the world.  The truth of this has been summed up for us in an ancient chant which used to be sung in the ante-chamber of the Temples.  Some of the words may be roughly expressed as follows:

"He enters free, he who has known the prison walls.  He passes into light with open eyes, he who for aeons long has groped the darkened corridor.  He passes on his way, he who has stood for ages before a fast closed door.

He speaks with power the Word which opens wide the Gate of Life.  He stands before the Angel and takes away his sword, releasing thus the Angel unto a higher task.  He himself guards the doorway into the Holy Place.

He died.  He entered the strife.  He learnt the way of service.  He stands before the door."

5. The Law of Group Progress

 

No.

 Exoteric Name

  Esoteric Name

   Symbol

Ray Energy

 5.  

The Law of
   Group
    Progress.

The law of
   Elevation.

The Mountain
   and the Goat.

Progressive Energy.
Seventh Ray. 
Factor of Evolution.   

 

This law begins to function and to be registered in the personal consciousness when the aspirant has achieved certain definite realisations, and knows certain ideals as facts in his experience.  These might be listed in a very simple way [175] and would then connote to the superficial student the simplest achievement of the Probationary Path.  It would, however, be well if we could grasp this fact with clarity, that this simple formulation of requirements and their achievement within the aspirant's consciousness, demonstrate as the outer and veiled reactions of his mind to some deeply esoteric cosmic truths.  This statement contains the very essence of the esoteric knowledge.  The quite ordinary formulations of loving living and of daily instinctive self-sacrifice suffer from being so vitally familiar and yet—if we could only realise it—they are only on the outer fringe of the deepest world truths.  They are the A.B.C. of esotericism and through them, and only through them, shall we arrive at the words and sentences which are, in their turn, the essential key to the highest knowledge.

A brief example will serve to illustrate this, and we can then consider some simple facts which indicate that the aspirant is beginning to function as a soul and is ready for conscious life in the kingdom of God.

The disciple in training for these higher realisations is urged to practice the faculty of discrimination.  You have been so urged.  The initial and normal interpretation and the immediate effect of the practice is to teach the disciple to distinguish between the pairs of opposites.  Yet just as the disciple in his early training discovers that the discriminating process has naught to do with the choice between recognised evil (so-called) and recognised good, but concerns the more subtle pairs of opposites such as right and wrong silences, right and wrong speech, right understanding and right indifference and their opposites, so the man who is reacting to these higher laws discovers that the discrimination to be shown is again still more subtle and is—for the bulk of the aspirants in the world today—still a meaningless objective.  This type of discrimination [176] is not even being evoked.  It is that which must he shown in relation to the following subtle contacts:

1. The vibration of the soul itself.

2. The vibration of the inner group with which he is, even if unconsciously, affiliated.

3. The vibration of the Master as the focal point of the group.

4. His ray vibration, as sensed via his soul and the Master.

5. The vibration resulting from the interplay between his soul and his personality.

6. The three different vibrations of his vital body, his emotional body and the mind.

7. The vibration of the groups or the group with which he must work upon the outer plane.

8. The soul vibration of other people whom he contacts.

9. The vibration of such a group as the New Group of World Servers.

These are only some instances of the type of discriminations which are required.  These he will learn to distinguish instinctively when he is further developed.  I would like to remind you that it is when we try to discriminate entirely mentally that the problem seems insuperable.  When the rule of the soul and the recognition of the soul have been firmly established, these different recognitions become instinctual reactions.  Intuitional response is the name we give to the instinctual life of the soul—the higher correspondence to the instinctual life of the human body.  In the above paragraphs we have a simple summary of some of the deeper significances of the simple injunction:  "Learn to discriminate."  How much have we truly understood this injunction?  Intellectually, the mind may give assent.  Practically, the words frequently mean nothing.  Do they signify to us the power of the soul to separate vibrations into differing categories?  Yet we are told [177] that the soul knows naught of separation!  Such are some of the paradoxes of esotericism to the uninitiate.

The Law of Group Progress can only begin to have a conscious effect in the life of the disciple who has been pledged and accepted.  When he has established certain rhythms, when he is working effectively along certain well recognised group lines, and when he is definitely and in understanding consciousness preparing himself for the expansions of initiation, then this law begins to sway him and he learns to obey it instinctively, intuitively and intellectually.  It is through obedience to this law that preparation for initiation is instituted by the disciple.  The previous sentence is so worded because it is important that all should grasp the self-initiated necessity of initiation.  Do we understand this importance?  Some of the effects earlier mentioned in the initial discussion of this fifth law can here be enumerated.  Let us not forget their esoteric and unseen significances.

1. The disciple will then learn effectively to decentralise himself.  This means that

a. He will ask nothing for the separated self.  One can therefore easily see why aspirants are taught to pledge allegiance to their Higher Self, and to foreswear all claims of this separated self.  One can see also why so many react against it.  They are not ready for it, and such a pledge therefore acts as a great discriminating agent.  To those for whom the standard of selflessness is set too high, it is neither understood nor desired.  Therefore the unready criticise it.  Later these will come back and with understanding take this obligation in the light.

b. His eyes are towards the light and not towards desire for contact with the Master.  This, therefore, rules out that spiritual selfishness which has been expressed [178] by the desire, innate and deep, for recognition by one of the Great Ones.  When this freedom from the personal is found, then the Master can dare to make a contact and to establish a relation with the disciple.  It would be well for us to ponder on this.

2. He will have learnt to serve instinctively.  He may, and usually does, need to learn to discriminate in his service; but his attitude to life and toward all men is a divine rushing forth to aid, to lift, to love and to succour.

3. He will have learnt to use the mind in two directions, increasingly and at will, and instantaneously:

a. He can cast the search-light of the mind into the world of the soul, and know and recognise those truths which must, for him, become his experienced knowledge.

b. He can also cast it into the world of illusion and dispel the glamours of the personal.  When he can do that, then he begins to dispel the world glamours for he is nearing initiation.

a. THE LINK OF THE WORLD GROUPS

It would be possible to go on listing the various developments which indicate to the onlooking Hierarchy that a disciple, or a group of disciples, are now ready for "more light."  The major indication is, however, their reaction to the Law of Group Progress.  It is this Law which is the coming new law to be sensed by the world disciples and which is already becoming more effective in its potency, even though this will not be realised by humanity for a long while yet.  It will bring into activity the work of the world groups.  In the past, groups have been formed for mutual benefit, for mutual interest and study, for mutual strengthening.  This has been [179] their glory, and also their curse, for great and good though their motives may have been, yet these groups have been basically and primarily selfish, with a form of spiritual selfishness most difficult to overcome, and calling for the expression of the true discrimination to which I have earlier referred.  Such groups have ever been battlegrounds wherein the least able and the least integrated have been absorbed and standardised or regimented, and the most powerful have dominated eventually, and the indefinite ones have been eliminated and rendered totally quiescent.  The successful group has eventually turned out to be one composed of kindred souls who are all thinking alike, because no one thinks with intuition, but who are governed by some school of thought, or because some central figure in the group dominates all the rest, hypnotising them into an instinctual, quiescent, static condition.  This may be to the glory of the teacher and of the group, but it certainly is not to the glory of God.

Today the new groups are slowly and gradually coming into being and being governed by these soul laws.  They will, therefore, strike a different note and produce groups which are welded together by a united aspiration and objective.  Yet they will be constituted of free souls, individual and developed, who recognise no authority but that of their own souls, and submerge their interests to the soul purpose of the group as a whole.  Just as the achievement of an individual has, down the ages, served to raise the race, so a paralleling achievement in group formation will tend to raise humanity still more rapidly.  Hence this law is called that of Elevation.

The time has now come when this method of raising the race can begin to be tried.  Those who have entered upon the Path of Probation have attempted to raise humanity and have failed.  Those who have passed upon the Path of Discipleship have also tried and failed.  Those who have themselves [180] mastered circumstance and the illusion of death, and have consequently been raised unto life, can now attempt the task in united formation.  They will succeed.  The word has gone forth with the request for this united activity, and the urge to bend every effort to raise the dead body of humanity.  A great and possible achievement of the Lodge of Masters is now imminent and all aspirants and all disciples can be swung into a synthetic recognition of power and of opportunity.

It is for this end that the teaching anent the New Group of World Servers was given out broadcast.  This is the first attempt to form a group which would work as a group and attempt a world task.  They can act as an intermediate group between the world of men and the Hierarchy.  They stand between what is occultly called the "dead Master" and the "living Masters."  Masons will understand what is here described.  The true esotericist will also see the same truth from another angle.