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SECTION TWO - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - Part 2

 

Many factors are responsible for bringing people together into such a group as this. There is, first of all, their mutual karmic relationship which, indicating as it does equality in aspiration and a general ability to make and hold certain spiritual contacts, enables them to work together more easily as a unit or a unity, if you prefer that term. In these cases, there exists [128] a need in the group for a specific and peculiar development in order that the group life may be thereby enriched and deepened. In other cases, there is a definite relationship with myself, dating from past experience, even if that experience is as yet unconsciously registered. There is a proffering of new opportunity for training to those who are upon the Path of Discipleship. All these factors influenced my decision to ask you, a disciple, to work in cooperation with myself and my group of disciples.

In your particular case, the determining causes were the contribution you can make to this group, out of your rich equipment of deep desire and understanding, and also a relation to myself of very old standing. Of this latter cause, I am, of course, more conscious than you can be.

It is necessary for me to explain these points to you as the understanding of causes is one of your strongest mental urges, and such an urge may not be disregarded. Entering this group is not an easy matter for you. You question your ability to conform to the requirements and to submit to the inevitable, even if voluntary, group discipline. I have also questioned it, not because I doubt your sincerity of purpose and of your life intent, for I do not, nor do I query the steadfastness of your determination to tread the Path and to go forward towards your goal. That is for you an unalterable and inflexible decision. You hold to it at all costs and in spite of failure at times to achieve your own standard of spiritual living. My questioning is based upon a tendency on your part towards vagueness and a lack of the sense of orientation in time. This is frequently the case with the pure mystic which you have been. Of this also I feel sure you are yourself conscious. It is not easy for a person of your type to enter upon a course of self-discipline under the suggestion of another, such as myself. To offset this difficulty, I would remind you that your acquiescence in the matter has been quite voluntary and that you have signified your willingness to make the needed effort after debating the matter for more than a year. That is all that I ask of you. I would remind you also that in my attitude towards my groups of disciples (some of which have been working with me for many years) I am simply prompted by a keen desire to aid you [129] all from the angle of my wider experience and to make suggestions. These can be followed or not as the disciple may desire.

It is, however, wise to make the effort and to give me the opportunity by a temporary acquiescence and a voluntary obedience to prove to you that there is a purpose and a planned understanding behind my proposed technique of training. Will you, therefore, be willing to try out my suggestions and to follow my proposals for an adequately long time so as to give proof of their wisdom? It takes time in the spiritual life for adjustments to be made and for needed unfoldments to be brought about. Two or three months do not suffice to offset the tendencies and habits of a lifetime or maybe of several life cycles. But you have courage and a steady will and can achieve much in this life.

Your problem is that of a versatile, advanced second ray type. You have a marked ability to do many things well and a decided aptitude to understand people, their motives and their impulses. You have a genius for contact and are naturally a good psychologist. You are prone also (because of your second ray inclusiveness) to over-estimate people and, subjectively, you have a strong inferiority complex, based largely upon your sense of the divine and not on failure. Ponder on this thought which I here give you. You need to learn to see people as they really are and appreciating, as heretofore, the divine in them to stand aside from them in your endeavour to help them and to work with and for them. You are apt to regard your ability to do well along so many lines as somewhat in the nature of a handicap. You must learn to regard it rather as an indication of the many ways in which you can reach others, and as a definite asset upon the Path.

With you I can and must be entirely frank; your innate honesty recognises the same quality in others and you would have no respect for me if I handled you with gloves, as the saying is. My function with you is not to tell you your faults or to give you many directions. These you know and follow the true direction instinctively even if at times you choose the longer way around towards your objective.

[130]

You have two things to do which—if successfully accomplished—would very much increase your output in service and reorganise both your inner and your outer life. You have to work conscientiously with the time factor and you have to make out of life a fuller expression of work well done. You have also to cultivate more definitely than you do the habit of mind, the trained attitude of the Observer of life, of people and of yourself. You must develop the attentiveness of the One who looks on at life and at the life struggle of others. It is necessary for you to learn that when you can avoid identifying yourself so closely with people, refraining from suffering so consciously with them, you can be of greater service to them and a finer friend and helper. Therefore, for you, detachment is an outstanding requirement and a quality to be cultivated. This is not the detachment of self-protection or of self-immunisation or of aloofness, but that soul detachment which works from soul levels and—seeing all life in the light which streams from the soul—regards everything from the standpoint of eternity. You will then see the real values involved and the true perspectives of the picture. You need to apply to people and to circumstances the quality of interrogation and understanding which you endeavour to employ when you follow your art. You must see people truly and as they are—with their faults and their virtues, their divinity and their humanity. Am I not right, my brother?

As time goes on, we can extend and deepen the analysis but at first I only seek to emphasise to you these two points or rather these two requirements—the right use of time and its right adjustment in your life, and the cultivation of an attitude of detachment. I am of no use to you or to any of my disciples if I cannot be specific and direct. The work that I may ask you to do should tend to bring about certain of these needed adjustments.

I am going to ask you to add to your morning meditation an evening review upon detachment.... As far as your meditation is concerned follow your usual procedure, at any rate for the present, only add to it each morning a definite period wherein you take your co-disciples (those you may happen to know) into the light and seek consciously to link up with them, [131] pouring out to them the love and wisdom which may be yours. This tends definitely to group integration....

You are in a position to aid and help many people. See to it, my brother, that you aid with wisdom, discernment and discretion and that you place your effort where the best results can be achieved. Right discrimination in helpfulness is rare, but you can give it. You will, of course, endeavour to conform to group requirements, will you not? But this must be of your own free choice and for the purposes of group integrity.

February 1938

MY BROTHER:

It will have been clearly indicated to you that you have a definite karmic link both to your fellow disciples and to me. The two are one, however. It is this that has led you in our direction and has enabled you to link up with these initial groups connected with the Masters' Ashrams which are attempting to embody the coming New Age methods of work. Earlier, you have worked with another group. Then the pressure of life and of circumstance and the desire to express yourself in a chosen line of activity, temporarily lifted you out of the group life and your place was filled by another. Now, work is found for you in a group which is to occupy itself with the dissipation of world glamour. I have decided to put you to work in this group because you are relatively free from glamour (I did not say free from faults or from the mental aspects of glamour which we call illusion). This freedom should be of service to the group. You can think with clarity and usually know why you act in a particular manner, for you seldom act without some preparatory thinking or without arriving at some sufficient and adequate reason (not feeling emotion) for so acting. Will you remember this as you work in my group and later—as the group works unitedly to dispel prevailing glamours—will you work with them intelligently and with power as they learn, with you, to master glamour in their own lives? When a man has learned to dominate conditions through the power of his [132] soul, then he can work in the midst of conditions, untouched and constructively. Will you try to remember this?

This group work is either of moment and useful, or else it is nothing but a chimera and a waste of time, having no real purpose and serving no useful end. If the groups of disciples on the outer plane which the Masters are now forming throughout the world can be regarded as among the Seed Groups of the New Age and can likewise be of immediate service in the stage of earlier preparatory work in which we now find ourselves, then it is worth while from many angles to give time and effort (in order to cooperate constructively when the time comes) to the fulfilment of requirements. Coming in, as you have done, several years later than the majority, in order to take the place of D.A.O., there is a good deal of information to be mastered and much earlier instruction to be studied. If you will do this, then you will be able to work with understanding with your co-disciples. Take at least a year going over the earlier teaching re maya, glamour and illusion. You will find much to interest you....

You are a creative worker and have also the ability to work in several creative ways. You are both an artist and a writer. This means that your soul can reach expression and usefulness along two channels. You have, therefore, two definite assets to contribute to world service and two points of expression whereby your soul and your brain are en rapport. Such channels are necessarily media of relation and down them light can flow, irradiating dark places. I would like to point out that creative workers in any field are primarily those who can destroy those glamours to which humanity is prone. These are found in those fields of illusory activity which men have themselves created. You are taking the place of a creative worker who succumbed—sincerely and honestly—to the glamour of a "free and independent soul"—a paradoxical idea and one which shows forgetfulness of the fact that the heresy of separateness, of aloneness and of independence is a part of the world glamour. This brother was thus unable to cooperate and valued his "personal freedom" higher than the planned group activity and thus for two years delayed this group of workers from arriving at [133] the intended activity. Will you, therefore, seek rapid integration in order to hasten the intended accomplishment?

To help you do this, I shall not assign you a great deal of personal work or outline to you much individual activity. I will, however, indicate the three rays of energy which constitute your personality. As you already know, your soul ray is the second and your personality ray is the fourth. A study of these five rays and those of your fellow disciples will show you where points of relation exist, where the lines of least resistance will be found and where you may look for rapid comprehension and understanding cooperation.

Your mental body is on the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict and hence your pliability, your sense of relationship and your rapid grasp of mental truth. Illusion will ever be a more ready snare to you than glamour. This Ray of Harmony through Conflict is that bridging ray which will, in your case and through the mind, bring about an increasingly rapid establishment of contact between your soul and your personality.

Your astral body is on the second ray and this will be sufficiently obvious to you, giving you those difficulties and those opportunities which lead eventually to expansions of consciousness and that sensitivity to the psyche in others which has been the basis of much of your most successful work.

Your physical body is on the seventh ray, which gives you a sense of the relationship between spirit and matter, between soul and body and enables you, if so you will, to be a constructive agent in magical work. Your rays are, therefore:

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

2. The ray of the personality—the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict.

3. The ray of the mind—the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict.

4. The ray of the astral body—the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.

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

[134] It will be obvious to you that the major line of force in your equipment, relating you to others and facilitating contact, is the second ray with its subsidiary expression, the fourth ray. This is a definite asset and an opportunity but it also makes possible certain liabilities. These should be offset by a stiffening of all first ray tendencies in order to bring about a needed balancing. I would add that

1. Your soul energy seeks expression through the vital body.

2. Your personality force is focussed in the astral body.

Read what I said to I.B.S. in order to understand the significance of the above.

February 1939

BROTHER OF OLD:

You have now completed a year's work with me and in this group of disciples. You have had this time for clarification of your thoughts and to give you the opportunity to define clearly to yourself the objectives and purposes of the work which this group should soon begin. You start somewhat handicapped as we have waived all the initial work and preliminary training in your case. You are starting in at the stage of organised group work. Will you do this with patient application and an unquestioning but voluntary obedience? Let not world glamour overcome you and see to it that you are not drawn into the vortex of fears and of pessimism which surrounds so many people these days.

As I have earlier told you, you are relatively free from glamour but the forces today are so strong that all disciples must definitely protect themselves. For you, this protection lies in some form of creative work. This is made easier for you by the fact that your personality ray and the ray of your mind are identical and also because your soul, anchored and focussed in your etheric body, can—if you so choose—galvanise your physical body into almost any kind of needed creative activity.

One of the things which all disciples have to learn to do is to avail themselves of the forces and energies which are theirs by right of inherent possession; these are, however, but seldom employed with understanding by the average man or woman. [135] They are usually the victims and not the users of these powers. Few realise how stupendous are the energies upon which they can draw at will. Your problem is predominantly the establishing of a dynamic relation between all the inner and subtler forces which are focussed in your etheric body so that you can occultly "bring through" into outer expression, via the physical brain, the riches of realisation, of understanding and of wisdom which are your possession. This bringing through is not accomplished by you as adequately as it might be, though you do succeed at times in so doing. You should aim at the outer expression of the inner nature with greater frequency and should seek to make the conscious link between the outer and the inner more dynamic and real. Ponder on this. The strength, wisdom and love of every disciple in the world today is earnestly needed. Humanity is demanding help and the Hierarchy is asking for cooperation.

January 1940

The necessity to do and to be objectively active is a major glamour of yours, brother of mine. You need to learn the lesson that it is relatively of no importance what you do. That which is of major importance is to register consciously and all the time just exactly what you are doing. I would have you remember that right doing is the result of being. If your awareness of being is of a personality nature, so will be your activity. If your consciousness is focussed in spiritual being, your spontaneous, creative and active service will be consequently by radiation. I would have you ponder on this.

For many disciples in training at this time, the present crisis presents a period or an interlude of withdrawing in order to re-focus and to learn again at the source of interior wisdom. So it is with you. Be occupied with the problem of sensitive response and not with the glamour of the work which you must do. Deal with causes and not with effects. The effects are inevitably effective.

NOTE: This disciple is still working actively with the Tibetan.

[136]

To J. A. C.

December 1937

MY BROTHER:

In dealing with first ray egos, such as yourself or with those souls who are working through first ray personalities, I am faced always with the initial difficulty of their "isolated independence." It is not easy for such first ray types to cooperate, to fall into line with group suggestion, with group rhythm or group discipline, or with united synchronised activity which is the announced goal of all groups of disciples. Frequently the inner attitude is at one with the main purpose and ideals but the outer expression, the physical man, remains unadaptable and basically unwilling to conform. Were it not for your second ray personality, you would find it hard to work in my Ashram, but it is this second ray quality of yours—strongly marked and the product of a long series of incarnations in a second ray vehicle—which can make you, if you so desire, one of the focal points for the work which I plan to have this band of disciples do.

It will take several years to bring about the adaptation of the group members to each other so that effective work can be made possible, to produce that inner synthesis and unified effort which will enable me to give these disciples in training some definite task to perform —work which may affect the governing forces of the world in subtle and unrecognised ways. These we can later elaborate when the required synthesis and understanding is achieved. Strive not to understand what I mean by this work as yet. There is much to do and much to study and explain before the work can come to fruition. There are many groups, working under the Masters, who have been in training for years, fitting themselves for the task to be done. Slowly and gradually, the new concepts and the new techniques of civilisation and of group work—suitable for the New Age—are emerging in the consciousness of the disciples in the world.

As for you, brother of mine, you are entering a phase in your life cycle in which you may become—if you so wish—the true sannyasin, the one who (freed from the more active tasks of the younger man who is starting out into the field of his life [137] activity) can use the experience gained, the hard won knowledge assembled and the wisdom garnered in active service of the Hierarchy and of humanity. You can now live for the sake of others and find in our work the reward, interest and compensation for all the struggle of the past. To serve has long been your aim for you have loved your fellowmen and have struggled to retain this love for humanity in the face of disillusionment, disgust at the general world selfishness and a tendency (strongly marked in you, my brother) to feel the futility of things and the uselessness of effort when confronting the present world debacle and the weight of human pessimism. Against this you must struggle.

I shall be glad to have your cooperation in this difficult work we are planning to do together. I would ask you right at the beginning for your voluntary acquiescence in the suggestions I shall make to you, at any rate until you see more clearly whither I am seeking to lead my disciples and get a more definite picture of the work which it is possible to do. I do not think that at the end of a few years you will regret temporarily falling in with my plans for the group.

In connection with my disciples, complete frankness is an essential and the good points and the weaknesses must be recognised with equal readiness. Among those whom I have been training for some time there is no attempt to hide anything from each other. They themselves would be the first to tell you of the importance, the difficulty and the value of setting up this frank relation. It is necessary that from the start of your association with my group that you should aim at a similar clarity of vision where they are concerned and they will have the same attitude towards you.

One of the things which has handicapped you all your life and which has held you back from a possibly fuller world service has been a pronounced inferiority complex. This tendency, though it has not negated achievement in your personality life and activities, has nevertheless held you back and inhibited the free inner movement of your soul, and has prevented that joy in living which should be the hallmark of the disciple. Your sensitivity is great and your grasp of world affairs and world conditions is necessarily somewhat deeper than that of [138] the average citizen. Yet the very depth of your vision and knowledge make you prone to feel your individual smallness and unimportance. This is coupled, as I remarked earlier, with a sense of futility where making any major impression upon environing conditions is concerned. It is in connection with this that your personality battle must be waged. I call you, therefore, to the task of achieving a closer soul contact. This will negate the sense of inferiority. I call you also to a cultivated joyousness which will end in releasing you to fuller service. Will you work on these two points and follow my suggestions for the space of one year and thus aid the group whilst helping yourself?

To help you in this connection I am giving you a very simple meditation—so simple that you may be tempted to doubt its efficacy. I can, however, assure you that if you will follow it carefully for a few months or until I myself suggest a change that you will be surprised at what changes within your consciousness this very simple formula will bring about.... Keep a pencil and paper beside you as you meditate and note down your thoughts and ideas as they come to you.... I am working to key you up for future work.

NOTE: There was no real response to the invitation to work in the Tibetan's group and though interest was evidenced in the papers, the work undertaken did not go beyond studying them.

To F. C. D.

January 1933

To my fellow disciple, F.C.D., who works in that loneliness which is so difficult for the second ray type, I would say the following: Your problem is twofold and when it yields to solution then your field of service—already large—will increase. You have the problem of a devitalised etheric body and also of a heart attached to many and hence unduly strained and taxed by others. There are many demands upon your sympathies. By the time you have reached the age of fifty years you should have achieved the difficult undertaking of becoming the sannyasin [139] in the Western world. This B.S.W. has already achieved and could help you if you, with frankness, cared to correspond with him. You have somewhat to give him too.

The problems of the etheric body will yield to treatment if the suggestions made to C.D.P. are noted and if the diet (in your case) is carefully controlled and regulated.... It is not my intention to indicate to those who work in my group the methods they should follow as regards diet. Such things differ for each individual.

You have necessarily at this stage the vices of your second ray virtues. You suffer from attachment and from a too rapid identification with other people. This can be handled if you stand steadfast as a soul and do not focus as a personality in dealing with people—both in your home circle and in your world service. You need to bear in mind that your relation is with souls and not with temporary forms and so you must live detached from personalities, serving them but living ever in the consciousness of the soul—the true sannyasin.

Carry your meditations forward exclusively in the head, therefore, except for some incidental practice in connection with the spleen (which I will give you to follow) with a view to etheric vitalisation. Your heart centre is sufficiently awakened for this life and greater sensitivity would be a handicap. The perfect fulfilment of your duty and your freedom inwardly from ties will spell for you that measure of liberation which will release you to fuller service. If you have questions which you seek to ask me, brother of old, I will with gladness reply.

June 1933

MY BROTHER:

Your period of difficulty and of loneliness has not lessened for you and you have found it hard to struggle along. I have not much to say to you at this time; you are coming closer to your Master and in such cases fellow-disciples may not interfere. The greatest help that I can give you at this time is to make the above statement to you and this I do. You have the persistence and the will (like tempered steel) of the second [140] ray and can dismiss all fear as to your capacity to weather the storm and difficulty and to win through. Nothing can stop you....

I would like to give you a special formula or mantram and I have chosen the following phrases to be repeated by you whenever you choose:

"I am a messenger of Light. I am a pilgrim on the way of love. I do not walk alone but know myself as one with all great souls, and one with them in service. Their strength is mine. This strength I claim. My strength is theirs and this I freely give. A soul, I walk on earth. I represent the ONE."

Your work in my group and your power in relation to your group brothers, consists in your compassionate comprehension. You feed their love for each other and you act as a focal point for that aspect of the soul which expresses itself in understanding. You can transmit that soul quality.

June 1934

MY BROTHER:

You stand at the verge of a real expansion of your work and for this you must prepare yourself. This, I believe, you already realise. It is, however, in the use of the spiritual will on your part that the release to full liberty of action will come. Your life has been a discipline, but the fruits of that discipline will demonstrate as you open the doors and also close them upon ancient imprisoning limitations. You know well whereof I speak.

First, I would say to you these words, disciple of the Master K.H. Who has also been to me a wise and guiding Teacher: Relinquish that close attention to the lives of those around you which is the easy way of working for all who are second ray disciples. Their sense of responsibility is so great and their desire to shelter and to guard so strong that they unduly cherish those who are linked to them by karmic obligation and whose lives touch theirs in the life of every day. Go your own way with strength and silence, and do that which your soul demands. Let not the lesser voices of the loved and near deflect you from your progress upon the path of service. You belong now to the [141] world, and not to a handful of your fellowmen. This is not an easy lesson to learn, my brother, but all disciples have some day to learn it and it is an appropriate lesson for you at this time. The call has gone out for Servers and all who are pledged disciples must be the first to make response. This will involve sacrifice but you can be depended upon to make it.

Your health is better and will continue to be so, if you watch with care and keep the earlier rules I gave you as to diet, etc. You may find that in the coming years, your hours of sleep will be less. This will be good, not bad, my brother, for too much sleep leads to diminished etheric force. A hint suffices for the wise disciple. More air and sun, less sleep and fewer human contacts are for you the rule in the future. Into these words read their hidden meaning. Clearer I may not speak for these words will be seen by others. But should you not with clarity understand, ask A.A.B. whose problem was in some points yours. I have told her certain things of value to you but she hesitates to speak and hopes you will comprehend without too much interpretation. I think you will, for your intuition is awakened and your devotion to the cause of the Great Ones is real and you have had much experience with other people. Your main task, at this time, is to get yourself ready and in a good physical condition for the demands upon your time, your strength and your heart which will surely come....

For you this year the emphasis must be laid upon the stabilising of your spiritual routine. Should you feel able to do so and the press of work permits (you see, I make not my request imperative) I would like you to write an article upon the Power of the Dedicated Will. It is the use of the will aspect that second ray disciples have to acquire and this, for you, is an immediate problem. The will of persistence you have. The dynamic will which breaks down barriers and carries all before it is your next achievement and unfoldment. May the power and the blessing of your Master rest upon you, my co-disciple.

I seek to answer the two questions you have asked me. As regards Z, the extroverting process must continue and go forward and I make the suggestion that he wait another six months or a year before he again takes up the earlier work which occupied him. He will have much to do as your work expands [142] and grows and his moments of crisis will be real, for your work will assume proportions which his cannot during this incarnation.... Let him work first of all for alignment with his soul and then meditate, for from his own soul, his true counsel must come....

Your suggestion, secondly, that there should be a centre at X of international usefulness is of real value and can be materialised if you work without haste and keep the conditioning of it in your own hands and in the hands of no one else. Meditate much upon it but take no steps until after.... In the secret place must your plans be wrought out and two men (who could be of assistance to you) have not yet been prepared; one of them you have not yet met. Think out with clarity, therefore:

a. The note that you seek to sound.

b. The work on the physical plane which the proposed centre should do.

c. The principles which must govern all action which you deem should be taken.

d. The necessary linking which should be done if the work is to be truly non-racial and planned to dispel some of the world glamour.

January 1935

MY BROTHER:

It will be obvious to you now how true were my words in my last communication when I foretold the growing expansion of your work. That has happened and the past year has seen you making many contacts and the increase of your influence in your own country and throughout the world is far greater. The decisions you make and the discipline to which you may voluntarily subject yourself will determine the scope and the extent of your future possible work. Everything lies in your own hands and in your capacity to make wise adjustments.

As you well know and as I have already told you, your problems are intimate ones for they concern your home relations and your personal, physical health. These you must solve yourself in your own way and no outsider may do more than suggest and indicate. That, I have attempted to do. The physical [143] weakness has its seat in a constant draining and leakage of the etheric body. This keeps you devitalised and hence the emphasis I have sought to lay upon the need for sun and air. Too long hours of sleep increase the drainage of vitality. Sleep recharges the tired body and fits it for the next day's work, but eight hours sleep each night suffices you. Your true vitalisation must come from the soul. You will not get it from excessive sleep and this is surely proved to you, for you sleep much and yet are ever tired. Forget not that a weakened etheric body is easily drained by other people though they do this quite unconsciously. Therefore, for you, close contact with others is not desirable—not only from the standpoint of your health but from the angle of the status which you have reached upon the Path of Discipleship.

Your aura requires sealing (if I may use so unusual a term) and the leakage now present can then be stopped. This cannot be done, occultly speaking, until you have made some changes in your life. Close inter-mingling with the auras of other people causes in your case a constant seepage of vitality, for you are constantly oriented towards giving. Your course is obvious but more I cannot say nor shall I again make reference to this matter.

Your problem is a very real one, but by no means an unusual one; it must be faced with common sense, loving understanding and wisdom. You must take the attitude of a disciple whose work and time is needed by the world in this hour of urgency. All problems are susceptible of two methods of solution, once the nature of the problem is seen and realised. There is the method of a sudden and drastic adjustment, whereby the old conditions are abruptly ended and a new state of affairs is inaugurated. This method—though oft the best—is not easy for the second ray disciple. The other is that of a gradual readjustment accompanied by outer explanation, until in time the same condition is brought about as in the first method. This is the usual method for a second ray disciple. Between these two you must choose, unless, my brother, you prefer to leave things as they are.

One thing I will add before definitely closing this subject. When the heart is full of love and the head is full of wisdom, [144] nothing then is ever done that can cause distress to others in the long run. By this, I refer not to action but to the fruits of action. A decision can be made and a line of conduct followed (and the decision can be right) but the eventuating conditions may not be harmoniously adjusted unless there is a subjective freedom from fear, a heart full of love and that loving understanding which is the truest wisdom. The man who is fearless, wise and loving can do anything and the effects will be harmless and good producing.

Persevere with the meditation upon which you are now engaged.... Meditate constantly upon the will—consecrated to active, loving service. It is the use of the will that is of importance to a disciple, for the rightly directed will is the controller of force and the disciple works in the realm of forces. And, my brother, not only karmically but because the same great Master has been our guide, there is work that you and I can do—both inwardly and outwardly in the world. There is true service that you can render. But your work is that of director and inspirer. Very seldom is the second ray disciple a good executive, unless the secondary ray makes him so. Executive work and organisation are not for you. You must learn to work through others, awakening them to a sense of responsibility and galvanising them into activity. By the steady power of your own inner radiance, you must hold your workers steady.

The task of finding the right people and of inspiring them is your immediate task. I would not help you and would only limit you within the boundaries of my own work (note that phrase, brother of old) if I said to you: So and so must be approached, or, there is the man I foretold would help your endeavour. You are in training as wielder of men and a guide of aspirants in the building work of the New Age upon which the Great Ones are now engaged. You must learn discrimination and understanding and right choice—through experiment, through failure and through success. All men are souls. Yes, my brother, but all men are not yet ready for disinterested service. Right judgment is a needed quality for you when considering people. For the work which you seek to vitalise, look not for the sweet, the gentle, the kind and tender because so many very good people are oft unintelligent and lazy. Look [145] for those strong souls who, responding to the need of humanity and reacting to the impulse of love (which you so richly shed) are yet capable of thinking in strong terms, are vital in their planning, consecutive in their activity and who waste not time in beautiful visionary dreams. The visionary mystic senses the ideal but (using not his mind) makes no compromise between the wonderful ideas which may materialise in a far distant future and the present period of hard necessity. Look for those who may not resemble you in their second ray background, but who give you of their confidence and love because they recognise your wisdom, realise your inner link with the Hierarchy and lean on your experience and soul strength. Attract not to yourself for the work you seek to do, the sweet and feeble, the weak, well-meaning, gently ineffectual person. Look for the strong souls through whom you must learn to work. Look for those who can cooperate with the Plan.

Look also for your co-workers outside the ranks of the psychologically distressed and the abnormal people.... You must refrain from welding them into any structure which you may build for the Great Ones. They are not yet ready and would constitute poor stones in the building and weak links in your work. You must build for the future.

I have spoken to you thus at length because your work as a building cooperator can now begin. Symbolically, I say to you: Look for those who have blended head and heart and above whose foreheads shines the mystic symbol of the builder.

That you may integrate more freely and more fully in the work of the Great White Lodge and enter into a closer fellowship and relationship with the builders of the New Age is the earnest wish and prayer of your friend, your brother and your teacher.

July 1935

BROTHER OF OLD:

There has been for you lately (as for so many) a time of testing; yet it has been at the same time a condition of consolidation, preparatory to the work of building to which I referred in my last instruction. I am dealing with "building groups"—those groups which are coming forth along the teaching line [146] and which are constructing those thoughtforms which will embody the new techniques and ideas. These—during the next two centuries—will change the face of our civilisation and inaugurate a period in human history in which methods will be tried and principles established which remain as yet totally unknown to the majority. That period will lead the race into a civilisation and a mutual, cooperative interplay which will bring to an end the present era of selfishness and competition.

You are predominantly the teacher and have needed to learn (and still need to do) three things:

First, you need to acquire that inner, divine detachment which sees life in its true perspective. A man is thus left free and untouched by aught that may occur. The ideal attitude for you is that of the Onlooker who is in no way identified with aught that may happen on the physical and emotional planes, and whose mind is a limpid reflector of truth. This truth is intuitively perceived because there are no violent mental reactions or emotional states of response; the vehicles of perception are quiet and therefore there is nothing to offset correct attitude. When this state of consciousness is achieved, you will be able to teach with power and at the same time possess that also which must be taught.

Secondly, you must acquire an increased ability to voice truth through the medium of the written word. Opportunity will come to you to reach the world with ideas that are relatively new; that which you write can be printed and circulated.... But, my brother, you must work for a year at the organising of your thought and material, so that you can reach the thinkers of the world with the new ideas in the field of that oncoming major science, that newer field of service—the field of psychology....

You have a capacity for clothing an idea in its appropriate garb. You could write a book which would be a synthesis of these new psychological ideas, subordinated to a central theme, which would dominate them as the head dominates the activities of the body. It is upon this central theme that the brooding process to which you are called must take place. You must know with clarity what is the new thing which you seek to give to the world. Then and only then will the many true ideas [147] which ferment so facilely in your mind drop into place and form the pattern of the garment which will clothe your theme with beauty and give it expression. The writing of this book should be your main, subjective endeavour during the next few years. It must be wrought out in the crucible of energetic living and must not be the product of a seclusion, produced by withdrawing from outer activity. Your best work must be done in spite of all hindrances and because the urge to give these ideas to the world will surmount all obstacles.

Finally, continue with the task of finding those strong souls who can belong to the New Group of World Servers, if given right training. Train yourself in that discriminative ability which will enable you to find those who will warrant the expenditure of your time and strength and of your thought and energy—from the standpoint of the Hierarchy and of the work that the Hierarchy seeks to accomplish. Study these words, for they give you the clue to the type and quality required.

Your problems of adjustment must still continue till solved, and the processes of detaching yourself from too close a contact with the auras of others must proceed and must be carried into the field of your service to others. I see in you a better comprehension of this problem and an increased facility in application. You are learning fast, my brother, and will find ample compensation as the work proceeds. Go forward to a fuller release and, therefore, to fuller power to serve.

December 1935

MY BROTHER:

I have earlier indicated to you that your general sensitivity is responsible for much of your difficulty along telepathic lines and in connection with your physical condition. Today, in this personal word to you, I seek to let you know how well I understand all that you have lately suffered. Life has been peculiarly hard for you the past six months for you can tune in so easily on all that is around you.

The path of the World Saviours is ever a hard one; the way of the Divine Sensitives is fraught with suffering and with pain. This is the way that you have chosen to go, and the knowledge [148] of this and its remembrance may help you to endure. Much help can also come to you if you will remember that there are certain lives in which the development of the equipment is the major goal. Then come other lives in which the prepared equipment is used. For you, this present life is primarily one of training and of unfoldment in connection with the sensitive, response apparatus. You are being rendered sensitive and so made aware. The power to tune in on the world pain and to be conscious of the world sorrow (and that sorrow indicates the world growth in responsiveness) is rapidly being brought about in you. But it is a phase. It takes a strong soul to know the sources and the roots of pain, lying deep hidden in the manifested world.

For you, at this time and temporarily, I suggest an unthinking detachment and an enforced refusal to permit the mind to ponder upon that which beats upon your sympathies from your environment. Practise this divine ignoring for the next six months. Be occupied with meeting the immediate needs of the individual; with carrying out the suggestions which I make in connection with your group work and service; and with deep, introspective reflection upon the Plan and the work of the New Group of World Servers.... My word to you today is simply one of cheer and of recognition. Persist upon the Way.

June 1936

BROTHER AND FRIEND OF OLD:

The strain of the past six months has been great. But it is now over and your problem must be to relax, not so much in the physical sense as in the inner mental attitudes. So much of your sense of inadequacy and so much of your inability to carry forward your cherished plans over long periods of time have their basis in physical disability, primarily (as I have often told you) in a lack of vitality and not ill health. Yet the future holds for you much successful work, if right elimination of non-essential activities (with a consequent intensification of the essential and a certain measure of physical discipline) becomes possible to you. As I told you in my last communication, [149] the path of the World Saviours is a hard one, owing primarily to the power to suffer which the second ray type embodies. This is of course in itself the principle of manifestation and holds the key to existence. Hence, therefore, the ability of the person upon this ray to "agonise towards the goal, carrying the burden of the world, learning—through identification with others—a detachment which, as time proceeds, negates all pain." Note the paradox here involved and learn its meaning which, my brother, is your task this life.

How to discipline your physical body and how to strengthen it is your great problem and your immediate task. I mean not to infer that you are undisciplined. I seek only to point out that in the adjustments of the physical vehicle to the demands of the period and to your particular life cycle, will come for you release into service. This service will make greater effort possible with less expenditure of energy and of vitality and, therefore, less physical distress. The great psychologists always become World Saviours, because the psychological problem with themselves is faced and solved—and solved on the basis of a technique of transmutation.

There is little that I can say, for you are gifted with knowledge and with wisdom; there is naught in connection with yourself that I can indicate, for you have studied your problems deeply and I—for several years—have sought to aid you. One thing only I will say: Your problem has far less to do with your own individual equipment than it has to do with your environing conditions. It is in these conditions that you have to serve. You are excessively sensitive to impacts from those surroundings, both from the mass and from individuals, and you know not yet how to give in fullness and yet retain, how to go out to others and never leave your own poised position. To stand in spiritual being—as I earlier pointed out—is the clue to your problem. You need thus to stand and with greater poise. A dynamic, mental focussing will save you from much depletion. If, my brother, you dwell ever on the plane of the mind, you cannot so easily be reached by the majority who contact you and who at present drain you of your strength. Ponder on this suggestion.

[150]

January 1937

MY BROTHER:

You are about to enter upon a period of fuller service. Much of your life has hitherto been given to objective activities and you have forced yourself to meet immediate needs. Now your work should become more subjective and more far-reaching in its effect and scope. This will only be possible if you learn the difficult lesson (peculiarly difficult to you) of leaving undone much that has hitherto been done, and by the exercise of a wise and most careful discretionary discrimination. Your work must be specific and carried forward in connection with certain souls who warrant your attention because of their capacity to be used upon the Path. Therefore, your work must in the future be given primarily to disciples and not to the rank and file of people. You can, however, work with the intelligent masses, the aspirants and the probationers, through your ability to reach them with the written and the spoken word. Your task is not to reach the unawakened, or to write that which is popular. It is the more specialised task of working with and cooperating with those in whose hands lies the guiding of the "little ones." You have an avidity for service and an acquisitiveness for knowledge and for information which must now be regulated. In the past, its expression has been of value. In the present, this must be adjusted and rightly controlled; in the future, the results of this acquisition will be employed.

Once, my brother, you placed your finger upon a major need when you spoke of the "lack of fire" which you evidence. This is, as you know, partly due to physical causes, but I would remind you that a physical body such as you possess can house a fire of such intensity (owing to its refinement and its purity) that many can warm themselves at it and kindle their own little flame. Make not your physical body a deterrent or an excuse. Use the iron will with which you are gifted and force its compliance to your soul's demands and to humanity's need.